Ex-Texas cop arrested for trying to prove conspiracy theory of vote fraud

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HOUSTON – A former Houston police captain was arrested after allegedly driving a man off the road and threatening him at gunpoint – which prosecutors say was part of an extensive effort to uncover false conspiracy theory of widespread voter fraud in Harris County.

Mark Aguirre was working on behalf of a powerful Republican mega-donor’s group to investigate baseless claims of widespread voter fraud when in October he allegedly pulled a gun on a man described by Harris County District Attorney as an ‘innocent and ordinary’ air conditioner handyman .

According to the Harris County district attorney, Aguirre was arrested on Tuesday.

Prosecutors say Aguirre’s election fraud claims were unfounded and he received $ 266,400 from the group Liberty Center for God and Country, whose CEO is prominent right-wing Texas activist Steven Hotze.

Hotze was among a group of Republicans who unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit for throwing out nearly 127,000 Harris County ballots this year. He was also one of the Republicans who tried – and failed – to stop Gov. Greg Abbott from extending early voting during the coronavirus pandemic, a lawsuit for which Aguirre had made an affidavit, stating he was involved in an investigation. to one and fraudulent ballots ”in Harris County.

Jared Woodfill, a Hotze spokesman and attorney, confirmed that the Liberty Center has hired a company headed by Aguirre to investigate voter fraud ahead of the 2020 election. The company has contracted about 20 private investigators to work on fraudulent ballot claims in Harris County and other places in Texas. Woodfill said he was aware of Aguirre’s arrest, but had not yet heard Aguirre’s side of the story.

“[Hotze] did not lead or direct any of the investigations, ”said Woodfill, noting that Hotze instead sent tips and information to the team of investigators to decide how to prosecute them. “The [Liberty Center] hired the investigative team to investigate the allegations. “

Hotze is an active GOP donor and is one of the most prolific culture warriors on the right. He is a fierce opponent of same-sex marriage and was a key figure in the failed 2017 Texas Legislature ‘bathroom bill’ pursuit. This summer, he infamously left a voicemail for Abbott’s chief of staff telling him to shoot and kill people protesting the death of George Floyd in custody.

President Donald Trump, along with the Texas GOP and some key Texas officials, have pushed so far unproven claims of widespread voter fraud both before and after President-elect Joe Biden won the presidential election. Trump recently joined Attorney General Ken Paxton’s failed lawsuit in Texas to challenge the 2020 election results in four major battlefield states. The Electoral College confirmed that Biden won, but 34 of Texas’s 38 voters defiantly urged the legislatures of four swing states to override the will of their voters and name their own. And a large number of GOP members of the Texas congressional delegation still have not recognized Biden’s victory.

While working on behalf of Hotze’s group, which has been trying to find evidence for the GOP’s election fraud allegations, Aguirre monitored the air conditioner technician for four days with the help of at least two other unidentified people before the incident. from October 19. He later told authorities he believed the technician was behind a large-scale voter fraud scheme in the Houston area, according to an affidavit from the Houston police officer who responded to the incident. Aguirre told police he believed the technician carried fake ballots in his vehicle and had as many as 750,000 in his possession.

“There were no ballots in the truck,” said a Harris County district attorney’s press release. “It was filled with air conditioning parts and tools.”

According to the Houston Chronicle, Aguirre was fired from his job as Houston Police Captain in 2003 after a controversial raid on a Houston Kmart parking lot.

Following the altercation with the technician in October, Aguirre also told authorities that he and other unidentified suspects had set up a ‘command post’ at a Marriott hotel in Pearland days before the incident. According to the Houston police report, he declined to identify the other people he worked with.

Aguirre walked in black SUV in the back of the technician’s truck to stop the man and get out, according to a court document describing the likely cause of the charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He pointed a gun at the technician and forced him to the ground, according to the affidavit. One of the other people Aguirre was with allegedly stole the technician’s vehicle after searching it; Police later found the abandoned truck a few blocks away.

A few days before Aguirre allegedly attacked the man, he called Lieutenant Wayne Rubio at the Texas Attorney General’s office and asked for help with the investigation. Rubio declined and reported the call. Days later he got another call from Aguirre, who was angry that police would not intervene based on his unsubstantiated allegations, according to the affidavit, which referred to a phone call and email from Rubio reporting the call to authorities. Aguirre would have told Rubio that he had been in a car wreck with “a suspect of voter fraud”.

“We’re lucky no one was murdered,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement. “His alleged investigation was backward from the start: first he claimed a crime had taken place and then tried to prove it happened.”

Aguirre was arrested by Houston police on Tuesday and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.