Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the trib Cast for Tuesday, September second.
Speaker 1: I am Eleanor Klibanoff, a lawn politics reporter, joined as
Speaker 1: always by Matthew Watkins, editor in Chief.
Speaker 2: Hello, it is three.
Speaker 1: Full months since sine die and the regular session version.
Speaker 1: We are still somehow doing the same thing. Although we
Speaker 1: should say we're recording this on Friday, and by the
Speaker 1: time this air is on Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Who knows what could happen.
Speaker 1: Speaker Burrows said he would get everybody out of here
Speaker 1: by Labor Day.
Speaker 2: That does not seem to be happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and now no one cares because Taylor Swift's
Speaker 3: getting married exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the main priorities, the whole legislature shuts down.
Speaker 4: Did you guys have a bet on who could talk
Speaker 4: about Taylor Swift first? That was like such a quick Yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a solid Segeay.
Speaker 3: Well, this is all just a my attempt to hijack
Speaker 3: the podcast to talk about the.
Speaker 2: Phones in schools ban Yeah, and how is it going
Speaker 2: so far?
Speaker 3: Well? This I feel like the Taylor Swift engagement was
Speaker 3: the big test. Yeah, and my daughter, as I think
Speaker 3: we've maybe discussed before, it goes to an All Girls'
Speaker 3: School where this was just in place, and I really
Speaker 3: it took everything I had not to dispatch a reporter
Speaker 3: to the school on the day of the announcement to see,
Speaker 3: like this is the true test of will the kids
Speaker 3: actually not have their phones in school? And I would
Speaker 3: like to report that my daughter found out in seventh period,
Speaker 3: but it was because a teacher told.
Speaker 5: Her okay, which is like how it should be.
Speaker 3: And apparently this teacher said, I have really exciting news,
Speaker 3: and uh, they were like what. She was like, it's
Speaker 3: really exciting. They're like what, and she's like, Taylor Swift's
Speaker 3: getting married. And my daughter went yes, very loudly in
Speaker 3: the middle of the class, wow, and no one else. So,
Speaker 3: you know, I think the kids have moved on to
Speaker 3: K pop didn't this.
Speaker 2: Is the right school for her.
Speaker 5: I'm just going to say it as someone who has.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of input in where your daughter
Speaker 2: goes to school. This is not the right place.
Speaker 3: It feels like if this if there were any school
Speaker 3: that were you know, would be excited, it would be
Speaker 3: Anne Richards All Girls School.
Speaker 1: I like to think Anne Richards would have been excited
Speaker 1: for Taylor's you know, she was a girl power lady.
Speaker 3: She was yeah, yeah, but yeah, you know she like
Speaker 3: she kind of had like a country twing tour. I
Speaker 3: can see Anne Richards in like a I could see.
Speaker 2: Anne Richards going to the Erastur.
Speaker 3: Like a friendship.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, Yeah, she would love that.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm glad to hear the cell phone.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is obviously so different and like I
Speaker 1: shouldn't even bring these two things up in the same conversation.
Speaker 2: But like I was in middle school when nine to.
Speaker 4: Eleven, I knew this is where you were going because
Speaker 4: when he said seventh period, I was like, that's.
Speaker 2: Where I was.
Speaker 1: And like a teacher, I couldn't have been. Actually, my
Speaker 1: school like really mishandled it. They got they made announcement
Speaker 1: that was like teachers don't tell the students anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how it was with me.
Speaker 4: And then it was I grew up in New Jersey,
Speaker 4: so it was just like a slow drip of kids
Speaker 4: leaving school and we didn't know why.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Taylor Swift news feels announceable yeah, and more positive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like no way of comparison.
Speaker 2: And just a hard transition.
Speaker 1: That voice you're hearing as I assume true fans of
Speaker 1: the of the Texas Tribune will know, you know, our
Speaker 1: new Jersey girl, our Bruce Springsteen fan and Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: and Kate McGee investigative reporter.
Speaker 2: Is Bruce Springsteen married?
Speaker 6: Yes, his wife performs with him like on the road.
Speaker 2: Sorry, sorry for not knowing that it's chances, Kate. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: I know, I know.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of a generation of you know,
Speaker 1: man oessensibly are sad that they can't marry Taylor Swift,
Speaker 1: and Kate is mad that she can't.
Speaker 3: Bruce Sprecing's in his eighties?
Speaker 2: Is that true?
Speaker 6: No? No, no, seventies look it up.
Speaker 3: Okay whatever. I had this conversation funnily enough with my
Speaker 3: daughter recently because we have this family playlist and oh,
Speaker 3: he's seventy five and like in the car, so everyone
Speaker 3: stops shouting each other about what music to this, and
Speaker 3: we all can add an equal number. And I have
Speaker 3: backstreets from the Bruce Springsteen on that album, and my
Speaker 3: kids hate that song. It's like eight minutes long, which
Speaker 3: is exactly why I put it on there. And they
Speaker 3: were like, is this song like from like the like
Speaker 3: the fifties? Like, No, it's from the late seven these
Speaker 3: and then I looked it up and I was like, wait,
Speaker 3: that means it's and it's actually from seventy five, which
Speaker 3: means it's fifty years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: I think actually it was like fifty years old last week.
Speaker 4: I think the So we're really timely here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we are.
Speaker 1: None of this is what we're here to talk about,
Speaker 1: but we appreciate everyone sticking through that. What we are
Speaker 1: here to talk about is Kate's recent reporting on honestly
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting characters in Texas politics, which
Speaker 1: is Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. Kate has been doing a
Speaker 1: series of stories looking at some allegations against Commissioner Miller,
Speaker 1: and just wanted to talk with her about Kate, maybe
Speaker 1: you can start us off, tell us like, who is
Speaker 1: Sid Miller and entirely separately, what is an agriculture commissioner?
Speaker 3: He's six years younger than Bruce Springsteen. That actually yes,
Speaker 3: I mean Bruce looks really good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, So Sid Miller is has been the
Speaker 4: Agriculture commission since twenty fourteen, about ten years.
Speaker 6: He was a state rep.
Speaker 4: For like from two thousand to he lost his election
Speaker 4: in twenty twelve, and that's how he shifted over and
Speaker 4: ran for ag commissioner and has been has won three
Speaker 4: terms since. The Agriculture commissioner is the person who oversees
Speaker 4: and regulates the agriculture industry and the state everything from livestock,
Speaker 4: cattle to plants. They do like biosecurity, making sure people
Speaker 4: aren't bringing like quarantined plants or fruits or seeds or
Speaker 4: anything into the state that could harm the agriculture industry here.
Speaker 4: And he has been, as you said, a character and
Speaker 4: had since he's run. Since he's been commissioner, he's gotten
Speaker 4: come under fire in a variety of ways.
Speaker 6: For some of his activity as commissioner.
Speaker 4: Really early in his tenure he got hit with a
Speaker 4: few ethical scandals, one of which he was discovered to
Speaker 4: have used state money to travel to Oklahoma to get
Speaker 4: what was known as a Jesus shot, which was a
Speaker 4: shot that was claimed to take away all of your
Speaker 4: pain forever. He's also like a cattle roper and is
Speaker 4: really like involved in kind of the like the rodeo
Speaker 4: world outside of his work as ad commissioner. He eventually,
Speaker 4: I think paid the state back for that trip, but
Speaker 4: has also gotten dinged for kind of ethical violations with
Speaker 4: the Ethics Commission and campaign finance reporting. And he made
Speaker 4: another trip to a rodeo in Mississippi and used some
Speaker 4: state money for that. And so he's kind of gotten
Speaker 4: dinged for all of these kind of ethical questions over
Speaker 4: the years, but has maintained, you know, been able to
Speaker 4: be re elected. He has a you know, he has
Speaker 4: a strong maga. Donald Trump's supporter really runs on his
Speaker 4: kind of bona fides and connections and like really builds
Speaker 4: up his connections to Trump, and that's been successful for
Speaker 4: him every election.
Speaker 3: One of the state's earliest and most enthusiastic Trump backers
Speaker 3: right in including I believe in twenty twenty four did
Speaker 3: his sort of went out on his own with a
Speaker 3: bus tour of of of swing states backing Trump kind
Speaker 3: of I think, self funded, kind of independently making that push.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and really like I mean, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of similarities between the two of them, right in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, very bombastic, very sort of no unapologetically
Speaker 1: themselves let's say.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, he has he's followed Trump in the
Speaker 4: same kind of like strong social media presence.
Speaker 2: He's come under.
Speaker 4: Fire for like a variety of racist or homophobic things
Speaker 4: that he's post did on a social media pages, and
Speaker 4: you know, has defended his himself and you know, continues
Speaker 4: to kind of be inflammatory on social media, but it
Speaker 4: works for him, and it's you know, very similar to
Speaker 4: kind of how we see Trump use social media.
Speaker 1: He also as Agriculture commissioner. There's nothing to sid Miller really,
Speaker 1: but he is the guy who had to handle the
Speaker 1: mysterious seed thing.
Speaker 2: Do you remember this when seeds kept being mailed to.
Speaker 6: People, Oh, yeah.
Speaker 5: Allegedly from China and nobody really knew what that was about.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know what. I don't remember the I.
Speaker 2: Don't remember the resolution that just I just remembered that anyway.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, like a very important role in Texas,
Speaker 1: a heavily agriculture state, like we also are the state
Speaker 1: that you know, the US Agriculture Secretary came from Texas,
Speaker 1: so a really important role.
Speaker 4: And I will also say, like not all states have
Speaker 4: elected agriculture commissioners, some are appointed, so Texas this is
Speaker 4: one that you know, it's an elected role, so it's
Speaker 4: kind of it plays a different role than other states,
Speaker 4: you know, and other agencies in the state right are appointed.
Speaker 1: So now let's talk about like sort of the other
Speaker 1: main character in your reporting, which is Todd Smith.
Speaker 2: Who is Todd Smith and all of this.
Speaker 4: So, Todd Smith has been Sid Miller's political consultants since
Speaker 4: he first ran for the House twenty five years ago.
Speaker 6: He did, That's how they met. He worked on his campaign.
Speaker 4: Sid liked what he did and kept him along for
Speaker 4: the ride ever since and has paid him as a consultant.
Speaker 2: Every year since.
Speaker 4: Todd Smith has also been like a prolific lobbyist. He's lobbied,
Speaker 4: you know, especially in the early two thousands, was lobbying
Speaker 4: for all different kinds of statewide and a national organizations
Speaker 4: here in Texas. Every thing from like the American Cancer
Speaker 4: Society to like home healthcare companies to you know, local
Speaker 4: cities like the city of Stephenville where Sid Miller's from.
Speaker 4: Todd Smith was their lobbyist. And also which kind of
Speaker 4: becomes more relevant later on, he was lobbying for hemp
Speaker 4: farmers as well, in like the around twenty twenty when
Speaker 4: the legalization of hemp farming happened in Texas. And so
Speaker 4: he's just kind of remained a person in the capital
Speaker 4: for the last two decades.
Speaker 1: So he's lobbying for hemp farmers. The Agriculture Commissioner oversees,
Speaker 1: I mean it sort of walks through twenty twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: hemp farming sort of becomes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, twenty nineteen, the twenty eighteen federally, the federal government
Speaker 4: legalizes hemp farming. Twenty nineteen, Texas follows suit legalizes the
Speaker 4: industrial hemp and like hemp related products or extracts like
Speaker 4: CBD oil if it's under point three percent THC.
Speaker 3: The idea of being farmers in Texas need a new
Speaker 3: cash crop, this will help the struggling in agriculture industry
Speaker 3: and everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it went amazing and we never looked back.
Speaker 1: There's no regrets at all.
Speaker 3: Podcast over Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: So and so, because the Agriculture Department overseas farming, they
Speaker 4: were the agency that was tasked with kind of planning
Speaker 4: out like how they were going to regulate this new
Speaker 4: crop and this new you know avenue for farmers. And
Speaker 4: so they the state or the legislature said when they.
Speaker 6: Legalized it that there would be.
Speaker 4: You know, an unlimited amount of hemp licenses that farmers
Speaker 4: could get. They'd be one hundred dollars each, and you know,
Speaker 4: sid Miller's department was tasked with figuring out how to
Speaker 4: do kind of like the day to day paperwork minutia
Speaker 4: of regulation of this new industry.
Speaker 1: And then, much like the high school senior who sells
Speaker 1: an elevator pass to high school freshman, Todd Smith starts
Speaker 1: allegedly sort of trying to make money off of these licenses.
Speaker 4: Is that the allegation, yes so, And this never went
Speaker 4: to court because he eventually pleaded guilty to commercial bribery and.
Speaker 2: Settled last year. But he was accused of.
Speaker 4: Going to He and another man were accused of going
Speaker 4: to hemp farmers or people who were interested and interested
Speaker 4: in investing in the hemp industry and soliciting money from them,
Speaker 4: a variety of money, some you know around some people
Speaker 4: said they were asked to pay like twenty five thousand
Speaker 4: dollars because he was saying there was going to be
Speaker 4: a limited amount of hemp licenses and if people gave
Speaker 4: this money, they would get to the front of the line.
Speaker 4: And so they started, you know, asking people for checks.
Speaker 4: People started giving this money to him or the other
Speaker 4: the other individual involved, and they were also soliciting money,
Speaker 4: saying that they needed money to conduct a survey of
Speaker 4: Texans like opinions about HEMP, to be able to convince
Speaker 4: lawmakers to support this.
Speaker 6: Industry, et cetera, et cetera. The arrest STAFFI David.
Speaker 4: Eventually, when Todd Smith was arrested's found that he took
Speaker 4: money from people, and then never this the surveys were
Speaker 4: never conducted.
Speaker 3: And they the idea here is, in reality, a license
Speaker 3: to grow him in Texas costs one hundred dollars, and
Speaker 3: he was charging.
Speaker 6: Twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: For something that people didn't need, and like, little did
Speaker 3: he know.
Speaker 1: In five years, we have lots of surveys on how
Speaker 1: people feel.
Speaker 2: About HEMP because it's all we can talk about.
Speaker 1: So at this point, Commissioner Miller is not implicated in
Speaker 1: any of this.
Speaker 2: Right. The operation is that.
Speaker 1: His political consultant is sort of doing this allegedly unrelated
Speaker 1: to him, but you know, using sort of the power
Speaker 1: of that office.
Speaker 3: Correct, It's worth noting the timing of his guilty plea though,
Speaker 3: can you talk about right and.
Speaker 4: I will say before we get into the like there
Speaker 4: were if when you read the investigative files from DPS
Speaker 4: there and the arrest affidavit like he was using the
Speaker 4: power of the office. But there was also allegations made
Speaker 4: that he was like taking this like the seal of
Speaker 4: the office letterhead and then using that print letters that
Speaker 4: he was sending to kind of give his scheme some
Speaker 4: like legitimacy.
Speaker 1: So it's not like you or me trying to do
Speaker 1: this where people would be like, you don't have access
Speaker 1: to these HEMP licenses.
Speaker 2: Right, It's like right, he's right, and yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: And so he gets arrested and indicted for fraud and
Speaker 4: commercial bribery.
Speaker 2: The case, you know, is making its way.
Speaker 4: The Travis County DA's office is prosecuting and his It
Speaker 4: was set for trial in late October of last year,
Speaker 4: a few weeks before sid Miller was subpoena to testify
Speaker 4: in the trial, and a week later Todd Smith, who
Speaker 4: had previously pled not guilty, pleaded guilty to commercial bribery
Speaker 4: in it, with a deferred adjudication of about two years
Speaker 4: and a like one year freeze on being able to
Speaker 4: lobby in the state, and he did not plead guilty.
Speaker 2: To the fraud charge.
Speaker 1: Like the implication of that timing being that they didn't
Speaker 1: want sid Miller to have.
Speaker 2: To be deposed.
Speaker 6: That is I think people's understanding.
Speaker 2: That's the connection some people are drawing between A and B. Yes, gotcha.
Speaker 1: So then, as I would presume, Todd Smith chagrined, chased
Speaker 1: out of state government, not allowed to return.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean previously, when this all happened and Tod
Speaker 4: Smith was arrested, like Sid Miller separated himself and distanced
Speaker 4: himself from Todd Smith, said he had stopped using him
Speaker 4: as a political consultant. Was really like trying to create distance.
Speaker 4: And then, you know, October he pleads guilty. And then
Speaker 4: a few months later, in January of this year, Sid
Speaker 4: Miller hires Todd Smith to be the chief of staff
Speaker 4: for the entire for his executive office in the Department
Speaker 4: of Agriculture. You know, Tod Smith had never been employed
Speaker 4: by the Department of Agriculture before, he was just his
Speaker 4: political consultant. But now he is serving as Sid Miller's
Speaker 4: political consultant and the chief of staff for this agency.
Speaker 4: Shocking a lot of people who were confused and frustrated
Speaker 4: that Sid Miller would bring this guy who he had
Speaker 4: who had pleaded guilty to essentially you know, defrauding the agency.
Speaker 2: Now is the chief of chief of staff.
Speaker 3: Basically to repeat that, someone who while not working for
Speaker 3: the agency but working for the head of the agency,
Speaker 3: pleaded guilty toally illegally an illegal scheme to sell licenses
Speaker 3: that he didn't have a right to license from the
Speaker 3: Department of Agriculture, pled guilty and then was later hired
Speaker 3: by the agency to be essentially like, if not second
Speaker 3: in command, at least like a very high ranking person
Speaker 3: who you know, has a lot of control over access
Speaker 3: to the elected official and presumably a lot of control
Speaker 3: over the operations of the agency.
Speaker 4: And yeah, exactly, it seems like he's second or third
Speaker 4: in command. There's Sid Miller, then there's a deputy commissioner,
Speaker 4: and then Todd is really overseeing a lot of increasingly
Speaker 4: a lot of departments in the within the the Agriculture Agency.
Speaker 1: And I mean your reporting has shown that, you know,
Speaker 1: even before he was hired, people raise a lot of
Speaker 1: concerns about sort of Todd Smith's influence on the agency.
Speaker 1: Like what has like what has your reporting shown about
Speaker 1: what the concerns are around him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so our first story that we did and why
Speaker 4: it's kind of important to know. The backstory of the
Speaker 4: Todd Smith case is that, as you know, once that
Speaker 4: case closed with DPS, all those documents and investigative files
Speaker 4: became public, and so we requested the investigative file, and
Speaker 4: that's how we learned of a variety of other allegations
Speaker 4: that were made by some of against Sid Miller in
Speaker 4: the course of this investigation to DPS about Sid Miller
Speaker 4: not related to Todd Smith's like bribery case, but related
Speaker 4: to Sid Miller's hemp farm and his like activity that
Speaker 4: he was doing. And so we in those documents and
Speaker 4: we you know, we got those document written like police
Speaker 4: files and recordings of interviews that DPS did with all
Speaker 4: of these some of them were at the time they
Speaker 4: were working, they were employees, high level employees in the
Speaker 4: Department of Agriculture. Many of them are now former employees.
Speaker 4: We can get into that later. And friends of Sid
Speaker 4: Miller's who never worked for the agency, but you know,
Speaker 4: we're really close with Sid over the years what so like.
Speaker 1: Basically, in the course of investigating these allegations against Todd Smith,
Speaker 1: which eventually did end up with an indictment and a
Speaker 1: guilty plea, other people started bringing up other stuff that
Speaker 1: has not generated any sort of criminal.
Speaker 4: CORRECTDPS said, even as I asked them recently, they said
Speaker 4: they are not investigating any of the further claims that
Speaker 4: had been made. But so what happened was in the
Speaker 4: Todd Smith investigation there were multiple claims made about Sid
Speaker 4: Miller's hemp farm. So Sid Miller, you know, is regulating
Speaker 4: the agency, you know, regulating the hemp industry as part
Speaker 4: of the Department of Agriculture, and is also one of
Speaker 4: the people who got a hemp license and started growing hemp,
Speaker 4: which is legal, sure, and his there are his employees alleged.
Speaker 4: The following one was a man, Freddy Vest, who no
Speaker 4: longer works with the department. He said that he was
Speaker 4: told by an employee came up to him at the
Speaker 4: agg Department and said that they had gotten an email
Speaker 4: from the Drug Enforcement and Administration saying that they were
Speaker 4: requesting information into Sid Miller's hemp farm. Freddy Vest was
Speaker 4: a friend of Sid Millers had worked for the Department
Speaker 4: of Agricultures since Sid became the commissioner in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4: He went and told Sid Miller and said, hey, the
Speaker 4: DEA is asking questions about your hemp farm. The DEA
Speaker 4: was upset, I mean Sid Miller was upset, got nervous,
Speaker 4: upset with Freddy for even telling him about this. But
Speaker 4: Freddy Vest in the course of this investigation tells the
Speaker 4: DPS about this separately. Another person, Michael Hackney, who was
Speaker 4: a longtime friend of Sid Miller, is a cattle roper.
Speaker 2: They were very close.
Speaker 4: He was like living on Sid Miller's property in his
Speaker 4: motor home for a period of years. Told he was
Speaker 4: interviewed by DPS and told them that later that year.
Speaker 4: This is all happening in twenty twenty two. Later that year,
Speaker 4: Sid Miller showed up at his motor home rent one
Speaker 4: night with like three bags of marijuana gummies and like
Speaker 4: rolled joints and asked him to get rid of this
Speaker 4: product because the DA was looking into his farm and
Speaker 4: he didn't want to. He couldn't They couldn't find this
Speaker 4: stuff on his property.
Speaker 2: All of this, you know, is reported.
Speaker 4: There's like some question of whether Travis County DA was
Speaker 4: even informed of of Michael Hackney's interview.
Speaker 2: There's some back and.
Speaker 4: Forth there that we but it never makes it into
Speaker 4: any of the the case with Todd Smith because it's
Speaker 4: you know, irrelevant to that case.
Speaker 2: And Miller denies all of this. He flatly denies.
Speaker 4: He did say that Freddy vest told him the DEA
Speaker 4: was looking into his hemp farm, but said he checked
Speaker 4: it out and it was not like there was nothing
Speaker 4: to it. The DEEA told us that they could not
Speaker 4: confirm or deny any investigation into anything, and they don't.
Speaker 4: They routinely do not confirm any investigation and after unless
Speaker 4: it's been fully adjudicated by the courts. But he says,
Speaker 4: and he told me, you know, if I if I
Speaker 4: were to do that, if I were to like get
Speaker 4: had product I needed to get rid of, I would
Speaker 4: have done it myself. Like why would I have asked
Speaker 4: someone else to get rid of it for me? That
Speaker 4: was his defense when we asked him about it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and also I think a great quote which
Speaker 1: is Freddy is a damn drama queen. Yeah, which you know,
Speaker 1: he's got a he's got away with words.
Speaker 4: But then subsequently what was alleged, you know this the
Speaker 4: Todd Smith case is settled, he pleads guilty.
Speaker 6: He gets hired in January.
Speaker 4: In May of this year, Freddy is still working at
Speaker 4: the Department of agriculture, and he and others are getting
Speaker 4: like increasingly concerned about Todd Smith's presence something that they
Speaker 4: have that DPS like UH interviews during the Todd Smith
Speaker 4: investigation found repeatedly over and over that people were raising
Speaker 4: concerns with Todd Smith's presence of the TDA even before
Speaker 4: he was hired.
Speaker 2: That people were told, like.
Speaker 4: Don't take one on one meetings with him. People were
Speaker 4: saying that they would refuse to go to meetings with
Speaker 4: Todd Smith because they were concerned about his involvement. Freddie
Speaker 4: Vest tells some of this to Sid Miller in May
Speaker 4: of this year, saying, you know, we're concerned about Todd's presence.
Speaker 4: In the course of this conversation, Freddy Vest tells Sid
Speaker 4: Miller that there are people out there who like have
Speaker 4: illicit photos of Sid Miller, and that there are like
Speaker 4: people don't want Todd Smith around, and that like Freddie
Speaker 4: is concerned that they might make these photos public or
Speaker 4: like turn against Sid Miller. Sid Miller takes this as
Speaker 4: a black as blackmail and thinks and thinks that Freddy
Speaker 4: is saying you need to get rid of Todd Smith
Speaker 4: and let or people are going to release photos he
Speaker 4: fires Freddy and reports him to DPS, saying that he's
Speaker 4: been like for coursing a public official. In the course
Speaker 4: of that investigation, Freddy then shares additional information about sid
Speaker 4: Miller's HEMP activity.
Speaker 6: You can tell that this is like extremely messy.
Speaker 3: And to be clear, DPS does not pursue charges against Freddy.
Speaker 2: Right correct.
Speaker 4: They investigated and closed the case and did not charge
Speaker 4: him with any crimes.
Speaker 1: He also said he's just a damn drama que It
Speaker 1: does finding.
Speaker 3: It does seem to be like there's two possibilities here,
Speaker 3: one being these folks are telling the truth about sid
Speaker 3: Miller and sid Miller has gotten tangled up in a
Speaker 3: lot of very questionable activities. Two, sid Miller hired a
Speaker 3: bunch of liars and drama queens and and also someone
Speaker 3: who you know, pled guilty to bribery, and that calls
Speaker 3: in to question, you know, some of the decision making
Speaker 3: of who he's bringing into his agency.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he like dismisses everything that people have said
Speaker 4: at these former employees have said as like disgruntled former employees.
Speaker 4: The other accusation that came out in this conversation once
Speaker 4: DPS started investigating investigating this bribery accusation. Freddie told them
Speaker 4: about another former employee at the Department of Agriculture. His
Speaker 4: name is Walt Roberts. Walt is also a character. He's
Speaker 4: been at the department since twenty fourteen. He's also like
Speaker 4: a world class fiddler and like an actor and was
Speaker 4: in the second season of mo I don't know if
Speaker 4: you saw that show on Netflix. So he's he's got
Speaker 4: his hands in different you know, he's a runaissance man.
Speaker 5: The Taylor Swift the Agriculture department.
Speaker 4: But he said that Walt had told him about a
Speaker 4: time also in twenty twenty two where Walt went to
Speaker 4: Bastrop with Sid Miller where and Sid Miller was bringing
Speaker 4: a bunch of bags of his harvested hemp and that
Speaker 4: he exchanged it for these role these little black tubes
Speaker 4: that had these rolled joints in them. And the accusation
Speaker 4: that was made was that Sid was exchanging his hemp
Speaker 4: for taking his hemp there they were spraying it with
Speaker 4: synthetic THHC and then giving it back to to Sid.
Speaker 6: That was that was the accusations.
Speaker 4: Illegal illegal, Okay, so spraying it with enough THHC that
Speaker 4: it was going above the point three threshold.
Speaker 2: Sid Miller also denies this.
Speaker 4: He denied that he ever sold hemp in bas Drop
Speaker 4: at all. And but Walt Roberts, you know, we reached
Speaker 4: out to Walt Roberts. He didn't want to talk for
Speaker 4: this story, but he did confirm Freddy's accounting to DPS
Speaker 4: and said that he was very.
Speaker 2: Uncomfortable with the whole situation.
Speaker 4: But again, it was just raising additional questions and allegations
Speaker 4: about what Sid was doing with his his hemp that
Speaker 4: he had harvested.
Speaker 1: Right, And again, sort of to your point, Matthew, like
Speaker 1: either all of these people are cooking up very very
Speaker 1: elaborate lies about their boss or former boss and or
Speaker 1: boss or you know, to state police, to state police,
Speaker 1: right or potentially commission Miller is evolved in some like
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, all of this feels like sort
Speaker 1: of playing at the edges of a thing that you know,
Speaker 1: they are really debating at the capitol, right, which is
Speaker 1: like how should we regulate hemp and THHC and like
Speaker 1: where should the limits be? And it's a relatively new
Speaker 1: industry here, and like you know, but certainly playing at
Speaker 1: the edges of legality.
Speaker 3: So you've written you know, a couple of stories about
Speaker 3: this with with a lot of the revelations that you
Speaker 3: just described. What has the reaction been among Sid Miller's
Speaker 3: colleagues and you know, fellow statewide leaders in the in
Speaker 3: the Republican Party.
Speaker 4: Sid's colleagues have been relatively silent, to be honest, they're
Speaker 4: from my understanding is they have been told not to
Speaker 4: talk to the media, and so there's been a lot
Speaker 4: of silence from the Department. I mean, I think people
Speaker 4: who the people involved in the story anyway, so that's
Speaker 4: been kind of the major reaction I feel like, I mean,
Speaker 4: a lot of the same from the Republican Party. To
Speaker 4: be honest, there has been some criticism on social media,
Speaker 4: but you know, I haven't seen there's been no like
Speaker 4: defense of SID at this point, and from public statements
Speaker 4: from lawmakers.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can talk a little bit about like I
Speaker 1: think people see these stories go up on our website
Speaker 1: or like a lot of news websites, and it's like
Speaker 1: and certainly I don't know that we've heard this from
Speaker 1: Commissioner Miller, but like we're certainly in an era where
Speaker 1: I think people are very quick to dismiss sort of
Speaker 1: investigative reporting. Are these kind of findings you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about like what it takes to get a
Speaker 1: story like this. We're not just like saying, like some
Speaker 1: guy told us this and we're putting it up on
Speaker 1: the internet, right right.
Speaker 4: I mean, these were all everything that we reported on
Speaker 4: for the most part. That was in both of the stories,
Speaker 4: especially the first one which was about Sid. The allegations
Speaker 4: about Miller's activity with his hemp farm, our allegations.
Speaker 2: Made in public records.
Speaker 4: I mean, we put in multiple open records requests to
Speaker 4: DPS for these investgateve files, for the interviews that they conducted.
Speaker 4: And this story is simply laying out what those allegations
Speaker 4: are for people to decide for themselves, you know what
Speaker 4: they think right now. I mean, Sid Miller denies all
Speaker 4: of it. And but these these were people who were
Speaker 4: approached by DPS and asked questions, you know, and interviewed.
Speaker 6: That's also a thing to note.
Speaker 4: They were not you know, I think we saw with
Speaker 4: like Ken Paxton like his and the whistleblower trial, like
Speaker 4: the whistleblowers went to the FBI, like these people did
Speaker 4: not go out of their way to report Sid Miller.
Speaker 4: This was information they shared when they were asked by
Speaker 4: DPS to be interviewed. So we I mean, it's a
Speaker 4: it was a lot of reading through hundreds of pages
Speaker 4: of files, listening to these audio interviews, reaching out to
Speaker 4: the people who were interviewed in the story, whether they
Speaker 4: wanted to elaborate or you know, corroborate what was what
Speaker 4: was kind of said in these in these investigative files
Speaker 4: and police reports, you know, making sure that DPS was
Speaker 4: summarizing the conversation accurately. A lot of people did not
Speaker 4: want to talk on the record, so we really had
Speaker 4: we really relied a lot.
Speaker 2: On what they said in those actual interviews.
Speaker 4: You know, then it was going to Sid Miller laying
Speaker 4: out the claims that were in these documents, giving him
Speaker 4: a chance to respond to every single accusation. And you know,
Speaker 4: we're continuing to file open records requests with the TDA
Speaker 4: to to continue reporting on this story.
Speaker 2: Great, Yeah, another Sid Miller burning Sid Miller questions.
Speaker 3: I just I guess sort of an observation. It's it's
Speaker 3: interesting to watch this play out, right, I Mean, the
Speaker 3: silence among elected officials is curious, right, I Mean, on
Speaker 3: the one hand, you you know, maybe it's not surprising
Speaker 3: to see fellow republic and sort of not go after,
Speaker 3: you know, members of their own party and members of
Speaker 3: their own actions. And the silence and lack of defense
Speaker 3: could possibly be read as not really wanting to be
Speaker 3: associated with our back but also not you know, wanting
Speaker 3: to stick their neck out and everything like that. It's
Speaker 3: also just kind of an interesting situation because, right I mean,
Speaker 3: we're in the middle of this conversation about like how
Speaker 3: harmful is THHC, how harmful is marijuana? Like is this
Speaker 3: really a bad thing? Should we be allowed people being
Speaker 3: allowing people to buy it and all those types of stuff.
Speaker 3: At the same time, it's the Agriculture Department's job to
Speaker 3: be in some ways putting up some guardrails and making
Speaker 3: sure that this is happening ethically and you know, all
Speaker 3: above board and raising questions about whether the Agriculture Commissioner
Speaker 3: himself is involved with that. So I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, you know, we're not that far
Speaker 3: off from the impeachment of the Attorney general right there.
Speaker 3: There has been a willingness in the past for Republicans
Speaker 3: to go after Republicans in this way, and so it's
Speaker 3: just been curious to me to watch the silence here
Speaker 3: and try to understand what that means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, go ahead.
Speaker 4: I mean I was going to say, we also just
Speaker 4: to add on to that, where he's heading into a
Speaker 4: reelection next year, he has an opponent who's raised like
Speaker 4: I think in the July reporting filing he had raised
Speaker 4: like four hundred thousand dollars to Sid Miller's seventy thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: Sid is not raised a ton of money, and maybe
Speaker 4: that will change as things go. I remember his last
Speaker 4: election too, he you know, there were some state lawmakers
Speaker 4: then who stayed out of the race in terms of
Speaker 4: endorsing a candidate. So we'll see if that is repeated
Speaker 4: this time, or if people decide to publicly back him.
Speaker 4: But I think, well, what happens in the next few
Speaker 4: months will be interesting and next year will be interesting.
Speaker 2: As we watched the campaign roll out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and there's certainly a case in you know,
Speaker 3: the Republican primary electorate where folks are willing to look
Speaker 3: past ethical violations or concerns about how they run their
Speaker 3: office if they view you as a warrior for their
Speaker 3: side right against you know, concerns about you know, how
Speaker 3: liberals or even in some cases moderate establishment republicans are
Speaker 3: running the state. If you are willing to go after them,
Speaker 3: or you were willing to fight on behalf of those frustrations,
Speaker 3: they'll look past a lot. And Sid Miller is definitely
Speaker 3: willing to fight and willing to kind of take that
Speaker 3: stance in that maga approach to government.
Speaker 2: So it'll be interesting to.
Speaker 1: Watch, just especially notable considering the role the Agriculture Commissioner
Speaker 1: plays on the front lines of the culture wars. But
Speaker 1: certainly I think he has he has made his name
Speaker 1: that way for sure. Kate, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. We'll look forward to the rest of your reporting,
Speaker 1: but you can find it all at Texas Bune dot org. Matthew,
Speaker 1: thank you as always. Our producers are Rob and Chris.
Speaker 1: You can find the Trip Cast anywhere you get your
Speaker 1: podcasts or on YouTube, and we will see you next week.