The search for illegal ballots leads to some crazy places, mostly because it's a conspiracy theory with no basis in reality, but also because it's Texas! Via the Washingon Post:
An air-conditioning repairman was driving his truck through Houston in late October when a black SUV suddenly slammed into his tail. When he got out, the SUV’s driver leaped out and pointed a gun at his head, police said.
When police arrived, the gunman offered an incredible tale: The driver, he said, was the face of a vast election-fraud scheme and had about 750,000 fake ballots stuffed inside his truck.
That story was totally bogus, police now say. The man’s truck was full of nothing but A/C parts, and the gunman — Mark Anthony Aguirre, a former Houston Police Department captain — had been paid more than $250,000 by a right-wing organization to pursue far-fetched voter-fraud conspiracy theories.
On Tuesday, Aguirre was arrested and charged with felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon as part of a “bogus voter-fraud conspiracy,” the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Because this is Texas, the story gets even better:
Police said that Aguirre had received $266,400 from the Liberty Center for God and Country, a Houston-based organization funded by Republican megadonors. The group’s chief executive is Steven Hotze, a prominent Texas right-wing activist who joined other GOP activists in the ballot lawsuit filed in late October.
The group hired twenty private investigators on behalf of God and country! Aguirre made $260,000 on this nonsense.
Seems Aguirre called the Texas AG to ask them to do a traffic stop, but they said they couldn't get involved. Aguirre responded that he would stop the car himself and perform a citizen's arrest.
This involved the former cop ramming the poor guy's truck, kneeling on the guy's back and holding a gun on him while his associates searched the truck and drove it away. Guess what? No proof of anything!
This is what Trump and the Q nuts have done to America: Conspiracy theories are now "facts."
UPDATE: Now, you knew this guy had a history!
