A text campaign referencing material for LGBTQ+ youth that caused intense backlash across Texas was sent on behalf of a national Republican caucus fund, according to the messaging company that sent the texts.<\/p>\n
The \u201cRepublican Women Caucus Fund\u201c and an individual named John Braun were the senders of the texts, according to a deposition from messaging company Infobip that a Travis County judge ordered be made non-confidential. No information about Braun was provided in the deposition beyond his name.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Republican Women\u2019s Caucus Fund said in a statement that the group had \u201cabsolutely no involvement\u201d in sending the texts or similar mailers that were sent to Texas homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did not authorize, fund, direct, coordinate, or participate in these activities in any capacity,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cWe categorically reject these false allegations and are pursuing all available legal remedies to protect our organization and hold those responsible accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The deposition was shared with The Texas Tribune by the Transgender Education Network of Texas, also known as TENT, which petitioned the judge to require Infobip to reveal the identity of their client.<\/p>\n
The texts sent across Texas<\/a> by Infobip on behalf of the caucus fund linked to resources on TENT\u2019s website and advertised guides on \u201cbathrooms and beyond for trans kids at school\u201d and answers to questions about gender-affirming care in Texas. TENT received immediate backlash for the texts, the group said, including threats of violence.<\/p>\n Days after the texts were sent, mailers from the Texas Transgender Student Union began arriving in mailboxes across the state, addressed to the \u201cstudents\u201d of the households they were sent to. Similar to the texts, the mailers repeatedly reference TENT despite the group having no affiliation with the sender.<\/p>\n The student union group that sent the mailer was registered in Wyoming in early September, business records show. <\/p>\n TENT filed a petition in Travis County court asking District Judge Jan Soifer to order depositions for this week that would reveal the identity of the texts\u2019 and mailers\u2019 senders. TENT said it felt the texts and mailers, sent right before early voting in the midterm elections, were designed to agitate voters and cause reputational harm to their organization.<\/p>\n Soifer\u2019s order came late Tuesday amid opposition from the Wyoming group\u2019s lawyer, Chris Hilton. Hilton is a former lawyer for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a>\u2019s office and was part of Paxton\u2019s defense team during his 2023 impeachment trial.<\/p>\n It is currently unclear whether the Caucus Fund and Braun also were involved in sending the mailers. The deposition from Infobip said it had no knowledge of maintaining a business relationship with the Wyoming group that sent them.<\/p>\n TENT is not alone in seeking the origin of the mailers and texts. State Rep. Jeff Leach<\/a>, R-Plano, asked Paxton\u2019s office to investigate who sent the materials in two separate letters after the texts and mailers were received across Texas.<\/p>\n West Texas District Attorney Sarah Stogner opened a criminal investigation<\/a> into the mailers last week for potential forgery, and said she was worried they were sent to influence the election currently underway.<\/p>\n Disclosure: Jan Soifer and Patrick O\u2019Connell has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune within the past five years. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in our journalism. Find a complete list of them and more information about our financial and disclosure policies here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A text campaign referencing material for LGBTQ+ youth that caused intense backlash across Texas was sent on behalf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[409,1183,287,27,29,293,28,9458,6748],"class_list":["post-480978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-election","tag-lgbtq","tag-politics","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-transgender","tag-well-b-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}