The Travis County District Attorney’s Office is getting involved in the investigation over the disappearance and possible destruction of records from the House Parliamentarian’s Office as word surfaces that there have been conflicting statements given over whether or not someone actually ordered the documents removed or trashed.

The Austin American Statesman has more:

Travis County authorities intend to review the possible destruction of documents believed to have vanished from the Texas House parliamentarian’s office after the 2007 legislative session.

Rep. Chuck Hopson, who heads a House panel that heard from a Department of Public Safety investigator on Thursday, said Friday night: “My hunch is that they (the documents) probably got tossed when they cleaned out that office. What we don’t know is if (employees) were instructed specifically to throw those papers or (any) government property away.”

Gregg Cox, director of the Public Integrity Unit in the Travis County District Attorney’s office, told me Thursday he’d met with a representative from the Texas Rangers, an arm of the DPS which has looked into the matter at the request of the House Committee on General Investigating & Ethics, which is chaired by Hopson, D-Jacksonville.

Cox said he expects to field information for his review within a week. Uncertain, Cox said, is whether he launches his own investigation into possible tampering with government records.

[...]

Denise Davis, the House parliamentarian, said last month she used the papers in 2007 to review historical and procedural issues; she described them as draft rulings, research and original opinions written as long ago as the 1930s, some irreplaceable.

[...]

Hopson’s office said Davis told the panel that 10 to 12 people interviewed in connection with the documents gave conflicting accounts of whether someone ordered the office housing the documents to be cleaned with all papers trashed.

It would be very interesting to know who the 10 or 12 people who were interviewed and gave conflicting accounts were. We’ll keep you posted.

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