Abbott tries to tar Davis with FBI probe

AUSTIN - Attorney General Greg Abbott's campaign grabbed onto a news report Friday that mentioned his Democratic rival, Sen. Wendy Davis, and an FBI probe - a magical combination that his aides said amounts to a bombshell but her camp brushed it off as a recycled attack.

A Dallas Morning News story said documents related to Davis' legal work for the North Texas Tollway Authority are part of an FBI probe into the entity. The story, however, noted that it was not apparent whether the inquiry includes a focus on Davis' work or if the documents in question were among overall records gathered in its look into the authority.

The FBI inquiry involves potential conflicts of interest among current and former members of the board. Davis, the Democrat facing the Republican Abbott in the race for governor, has not served on that board.

"We have no reason to believe that Wendy Davis is the subject or target of any investigation," Davis Communications Director Zac Petkanas said.

Abbott, Petkanas said, "knows this is an old political charge that was started by Wendy Davis' opponent in the 2012 campaign and that anyone who looks at this matter will conclude that Wendy Davis has always fought in the best interest of her constituents."

Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said "there's really nothing damning" in records about Davis' legal work being part of a broad look at the NTTA.

"When they start these types of inquiries, they sweep up everything. Since Wendy Davis did work as a lawyer for the NTTA, and the FBI is doing a sweeping investigation of the NTTA, it isn't surprising there is some type of file related to her," Jones said.

Travis County inquiry

The records at the center of the story were gathered by the Travis County District Attorney's office following a complaint about Davis' work for the NTTA from her 2012 re-election opponent, former state Rep. Mark Shelton.

"We did a review to the point that we determined we didn't have venue, and then we stopped our investigation," Travis County Assistant District Attorney Gregg Cox said Friday. "At that point, we had not found any criminal wrongdoing. We did enough to determine that nothing happened in Travis County."

The Morning News made an open-records request for the Travis County district attorney's files in the closed case. The request was denied, with the FBI probe of NTTA cited as one reason the records should be kept secret.

Cox said the district attorney's office had reached out to the FBI in the course of its 2012 inquiry because of news articles indicating the federal agency was investigating the NTTA. The FBI, he said, shared information with the district attorney's office.

Cox said the district attorney, as a matter of policy, protects information gathered if an investigation does not lead to charges or a conviction. That is, in part, to protect information gathered through "the power of government" that could be used, among other things, as political fodder, he said.

Abbott's office, which has jurisdiction over open records in Texas, said the records could be kept confidential.

His campaign, however, was quick to try to use the Morning News story to its advantage, tweeting the story several times, once with the message: "Sen. @WendyDavisTexas' legal work is under FBI investigation."

An FBI spokeswoman would neither confirm nor deny any investigation.

"This revelation - the latest in a series of bombshells regarding Sen. Davis' ethical conduct - is both shocking and unsurprising at the same time," Abbott campaign spokesman Matt Hirsch said in a statement. "Sen. Davis must fully disclose the facts about any wrongdoing and the extent of her involvement in that wrongdoing. Texans deserve to know the truth about Sen. Davis' involvement in a matter the FBI is investigating. This is a serious ethics issue that may violate federal law and cannot be swept under the rug, as Sen. Davis has tried to do when confronted with questions about her ethics thus far."

Davis has faced questions about her legal work in her 2012 re-election and again in her race for governor. She and her advisers have said she acted properly.

Cancer center

The tollway authority is among public entities for which Davis has done legal work. She voted on legislation affecting tollway projects in 2009 and 2011. Her firm signed an agreement with NTTA in May 2011, two months after the last vote, but her campaign said she did not log her first billable hour until that August.

"Greg Abbott's politically motivated attack this morning is a desperate attempt to distract from his deeply unethical insider dealings, including allowing his donors to bilk $42 million in taxpayer funds from our state's cancer research center which is currently the subject of an ongoing prosecution by the Travis County district attorney," Petkanas said.

Abbott was a member of the governing board for the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Oversight Committee, but designated a deputy to serve in his place who missed a number of meetings. CPRIT became tangled in a scandal in which its former chief commercialization officer was indicted after being accused of withholding information that an $11 million grant had not been reviewed as required.