Judge Lina Hidalgo — a Democrat in Harris County, Texas, the third-largest county in the U.S. — is no longer denying she used encrypted messaging apps to conduct county business, despite being called out for doing so for multi-million-dollar contracts in 2021.
FOX 26 Houston reported that last week, Texas Rangers were granted five additional search warrants to investigate bid-rigging in Harris County.
In 2021, Hidalgo faced intense scrutiny over an $11 million vaccine outreach contract to Elevate Strategies, run by Felicity Pereyra, a Democratic political insider with ties to the county commissioners’ court. Pereyra also worked on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Pereyra’s company was a one-woman operation until recently and had only existed for two years before being awarded the contract.
LEADER OF TEXAS’ LARGEST COUNTY TAKES TEMPORARY LEAVE OF ABSENCE TO SEEK DEPRESSION TREATMENT
Pereyra’s company was awarded the contract over UT Health, one of the city’s major hospitals, and the “deciders” for the contract all answered directly to Hidalgo without input from the commissioners’ panel.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg’s office subpoenaed Hidalgo regarding the contract, and when asked about the subpoena,
