Abbott rips Hinojosa for ‘sham lawsuit’ over governor’s refusal to release messages with Elon Musk

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) railed against his Democratic challenger, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, for bringing a “sham lawsuit” against him after a district court issued a temporary order forcing the governor to allow Hinojosa to inspect his communications with SpaceX founder and GOP donor Elon Musk.The legal battle ignited earlier this month after Hinojosa filed a lawsuit claiming Abbott refused to inspect documents detailing his communications with Musk. In response to Hinojosa’s lawsuit, Abbott filed a preliminary appeal and asked the Fifteenth Court of Appeals to step in and dismiss the case entirely, successfully blocking the lower court’s order for now using an automatic legal freeze.“This was a sham lawsuit in a rigged district court,” Abbott’s press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, said. Abbott has previously called Hinojosa’s lawsuit a “political stunt” in an attempt to impact the midterm elections.With the appeals court order freezing the case, Hinojosa now has two weeks to respond to Abbott’s effort to throw out the case.Hinojosa filed the lawsuit Oct. 19 after she claims he refused to hand over his communications with Musk under the Texas Public Information Act. According to the filing, she first requested the records Sept. 29 and gave Abbott until Oct. 13 to allow her to view them.Abbott’s office provided approximately 1,300 pages detailing the communications between Musk and the governor, but all but 200 were redacted, according to court documents. Additionally, Hinojosa claimed Abbott argued the communications with Musk included information that was “intimate and embarrassing.” The documents requested by Hinojosa were also requested by the Texas Newsroom last year, which similarly received the documents heavily redacted.Hinojosa’s lawsuit details what she frames as a close relationship between Musk and the governor and claims that her request for the documents was to examine the “disturbing influence over Texas government of Musk and his fellow mega-billionaires.” She affirms she does not plan to make the communications public, only to review them for oversight purposes.GREG ABBOTT MAY HOLD THE KEYS TO THE TEXAS SENATE RACE AS HE FACES A TOUGH BATTLE OF HIS OWNSeveral of Musk’s corporations are based in Texas, and Musk has donated over $5 million to Abbott’s campaign, as noted in Hinojosa’s lawsuit. She also mentions that Musk is a megadonor to Republicans, having contributed roughly $366 million to Republicans and affiliated PACs since July.Musk’s contributions to Republicans have also led to scrutiny in other races, including the Texas Senate race between James Talarico and Ken Paxton. Talarico has repeatedly attacked Paxton for floating his campaign’s advertising. Notably, Paxton reviewed the documents Hinojosa had requested.