Texas Senator Faces New Indictment

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) was re-indicted Wednesday on ethics charges stemming from her 2 1/2-year tenure as state treasurer.

“Same charges, same indictments,” Assistant Travis County Dist. Atty. Steve McCleery said.

Hutchison, 50, was previously indicted in September on four felony counts and one misdemeanor charge. She was accused of using state employees to perform personal and political chores on state time and of attempting to cover up the activity by destroying computer tapes containing the employees’ work files.

The charges were dropped Oct. 26 after Hutchison’s lawyers discovered that a grand juror on the previous panel had a pending theft charge, making him ineligible to serve.

County Dist. Atty. Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, took the case to a second grand jury, which also re-indicted two former Hutchison aides, Mike Barron and David Criss, on accusations of official misconduct.

Hutchison, who won a special election in June to become the first woman to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate, has denied any wrongdoing. She called the investigation a Democratic plot to weaken her reelection chances. She has filed to seek a full six-year term in next year’s elections.

Hutchison’s spokesman, David Beckwith, had no immediate comment on the re-indictment.

Hutchison has been accused by some former state workers of being an obsessive boss who once struck an employee out of frustration and who made a habit out of ordering staffers to conduct personal and political errands.

Hutchison says she laid down strict guidelines for employees to follow in order to separate state and political work.