Former Woodfill Client Claims Ogg Dropped the Ball and “Mishandled” the Case, Which Was “Closed Abruptly”

Jared Woodfill, Kim Ogg, and Rachel Hooper are all back in the news again. This time, they’re all in one big story.

Per Robert Downen at Texas Tribune:

“A former client of Houston attorney and Texas House candidate Jared Woodfill is asking state and federal investigators to give fresh scrutiny to a 2017 investigation into allegations that he misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars from his firm’s clients.

In a sworn affidavit sent this week to the Texas Rangers, the FBI’s Houston office and U.S. attorneys in the Southern District, Amy Holsworth, the former client, alleges that Harris County prosecutors mishandled her case against Woodfill and unexpectedly closed it. She also suggests the outcome of the case may have been improperly influenced by District Attorney Kim Ogg and Rachel Hooper, a Houston attorney and counsel for the Texas GOP whose relationship with Ogg has been under scrutiny since January.”

This is all a natural extension of exactly the kind of political treason and public corruption Ogg has become known for in both Democratic circles and throughout Harris County. As Downen references, Houston Landing broke in January that Rachel Hooper was hired by Ogg, a personal friend, for $145K in taxpayer dollars to investigate Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. Now, we’ve learned that Hooper may have applied pressure to Ogg or sweet-talked her on behalf of one of the nastiest Republicans on the planet, Jared Woodfill, in order to drop fraud charges against him.

Corrupt, Complicit, and Amoral: Meet Jared Woodfill

Jared Woodfill is the former Harris County GOP Chairman and lawyer of Steve Hotze, a litigious antigay vote denying quack fascist GOP activist. Hotze has been spoken about in the press, almost never positively; he once hired private investigators to fabricate voter fraud, a scheme that led to a former police captain holding up an AC repairman on the claim that his repair truck had 750,000 fraudulent ballots prepped by Democrats (obvious newsflash: it did not).

Wherever Woodfill goes, there are bad people, and whatever he touches, he worsens. Woodfill teamed up with his former law partner, Paul Pressler, even though he knew that Pressler, a Southern Baptist Convention figure and Judge caught up in their sex scandal, had preyed on young men. Despite his knowledge of Pressler’s behavior, Woodfill provided young men to work out of Pressler’s house.

Perhaps predictably, Woodfill is now running for house district 138, yelling about how Christian Nationalist wannabe Lacey Hull is a “RINO” and carrying water for Ken Paxton.

Go figure.

Harris County’s Most Skullduggerous Attorney, Rachel Hooper

Rachel Hooper gets paid to stir up lawsuits and rightwing lies. Ogg gave her big money out of public coffers to investigate Lina Hidalgo even though Ms. Hooper was still general counsel of the Texas Republican Party. Hooper also once pleaded the 5th in a case during a time when she worked for the DA’s office under Ogg’s predecessor, behavior special prosecutors called “disturbing.”

Hooper filed a voter fraud complaint on a 64-year-old Black parolee named Hervis Rogers in 2020, a complaint Ogg took before the grand jury even though she was not required to do so. Rogers waited seven hours to vote because he believed he was legally cleared to do so. He was held in jail on $100,000 bail that he couldn’t afford.

Most recently, Hooper leaked media details to the rightwing’s second favorite local newsman Greg Groogan about a lawsuit accusing HHA of pushing a project that was dangerous because of a radio tower in a “fall zone” in an effort to get Mayor Whitmire to kill the project. 

Rachel’s wife Don Hooper, an Ogg campaign donor, is a local far right blogger who refers to Ogg’s Democratic opposition within the party as “communists.” Mr. Hooper recently took a shot at the wife and daughter of one of his Republican rivals, John R. Eakin, who responded with a short but robust history of some of Don Hooper’s most disgraceful behavior: allegations of impersonating a police officer, and threatening another member of the state GOP.

From Bad to Worse for Kim Ogg

For Kim Ogg, circumstances have deteriorated to a new low. It was bad enough for her to tie hands with Republicans over and over to undermine Democrats. 

Now, we’ve learned that she may have let one of the worst human beings in the world off the hook with the help of one of her closest political allies, who is also the Texas Republican Party’s favorite lawyer.

Let’s see what Democratic Primary voters think of that in Harris County.

About the Author

Daniel J. Cohen is an advocate in Houston. As one of the most active pro-democracy Houstonians since November of 2016 and the founder of Indivisible Houston, he has grown a volunteer army of more than 2,000 democracy advocates across the Houston area; led successful grassroots communications efforts to flip federal, state, and county seats (TX-07, HD-134, County Judge); secured earned media through traditional and social media channels estimated at more than $50 million in value with an all volunteer staff and an annual budget of less than $25,000; built coalitions with organizations, independent community leaders, and media at the local, state, and national level; and organized, promoted, and led some of the largest marches in the history of Houston.

Cohen has been published or quoted by Houston Chronicle, Texas Signal, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, WAPO, and other major media. To support his work, subscribe to his Substack. Both paid and free subscriptions are available.