Warum Gouverneur Greg Abbott seine E -Mails nicht mit Elon Musk veröffentlichen | Das Büro des Gouverneurs wird sie nicht umdrehen und sagen, dass einige „intime und peinliche“ Informationen enthalten, die „nicht legitim für die Öffentlichkeit“ sind.

Hi r/politics,

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott doesn’t want to reveal months of communications between his office and Elon Musk or representatives from Musk’s companies. His office charged The Texas Newsroom — which partnered with ProPublica and The Texas Tribune for this story — $244.64 up front for a public records request. But after cashing the check, the office said it believed all the records were confidential.

The records request was made in April as part of an effort to track Musk’s influence on the state legislature. The billionaire’s lobbyists have successfully advocated for several new laws during this year’s legislative session. 

Matthew Taylor, Abbott’s public information coordinator, argued that the request was denied in part due to an exception to public records laws known as “common-law privacy,” because the emails consist of “**information that is intimate and embarrassing and not of legitimate concern to the public,** including financial decisions that do not relate to transactions between an individual and a governmental body.”

When reporter Lauren McGaughy spoke to Bill Aleshire, a legal expert on public records law, he said it’s not unusual for government agencies to tap the common-law privacy exception. But he’s used to it being cited in cases that involve children, medical data or other highly personal information — not for emails between an elected official and a businessman. 

“Right now, it appears they’ve charged you $244 for records they have no intention of giving you,” he told her.

**Here’s the full story**: [https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-governor-greg-abbott-elon-musk-emails-foia](https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-governor-greg-abbott-elon-musk-emails-foia) 

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*Musk and representatives for his companies did not respond to requests for comment for this story.*

*Abbott’s spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about the records, including whether The Texas Newsroom would be refunded if Paxton withholds them. In a statement, he said, “The Office of the Governor rigorously complies with the Texas Public Information Act and will release any responsive information that is determined to not be confidential or excepted from disclosure.”*

Call me crazy, but MAYBE a government official shouldn’t be doing anything intimate or embarrassing in their official emails.

How about the public decides what is the concern of the public?

> information that is intimate and embarrassing and not of legitimate concern to the public

Why don’t you let the public decide that, follow the law, and hand it over?

Well then you should of had those emails on a personal account…  if it is a personal account, then you should of had work emails on a work account and shouldn’t have mixed em.  Remember the Hillary email scandal, this sounds exactly the same.

Follow-up: why were you sharing intimate and embarrassing info with a political funder?

strange, every job i’ve ever had, including 19 years in defense, very clearly and in no uncertain terms explained that on our IT systems there was “no expectation of privacy”

Did someone not explain to him the „don’t put anything in an e-mail that you don’t want your mom to see“ internet rule?

Public servants shouldn’t get to decide what materials created as part of their public service are viewable by the public. They serve at the pleasure of the people.

Where are the hackers? I mean in 2016 everyone’s emails on the Dem side were being stolen and leaked to the public so why aren’t people doing the same for shit like this?

By ‚intimate‘ he means ’shady‘.

It’s about catheters. 100% about catheters.

You’re a public servant. FOIA. FU Abbott. You and the rest of the GOP continue to abuse power and pick and chose what laws to follow and what not to follow. You all need to be voted out and arressted.

Remember when a guy screamed to loud and that ended his political career. Can we go back to that?

Interesting how my emails at work are the property of the company and they can access them whenever they wanted, yet these elected officials can keep it all private? 🤔