I am begging for there to be a multi-part prestige podcast about this when it is all over.
A legal cat-and-mouse contest is playing out in far West Texas, where local and state authorities are attempting to stymie a charismatic out-of-state man whose stated intention is to orchestrate a political takeover of one of the state’s richest counties.
By promising free homes and $5,000 monthly stipends, social media influencer Malcolm Tanner has lured dozens of people from around the country to an 10-acre patch of scrubland in oil-rich Loving County. The group last year established a small settlement a 40-minute drive down rough oil-company roads outside of Mentone, the county’s only city.
[…]
While the plan seemed far-fetched, the dusty county near the New Mexico border is a ripe target. With barely 100 registered voters, it is the least-populated county in the country; local offices can be won with a few dozen votes. Thanks to a gusher of Permian Basin oil revenues, it is awash in money; county leaders control a budget of about $62 million. It also has a history of loose voter registration enforcement.
The Houston Chronicle revealed Tanner’s plan in a story last September. Since then, the state’s lawyers have tried to box out Tanner, while he has eluded their grasp.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit last October following the Chronicle’s article. “Malcolm Tanner has no right to try and take over Loving County with illegal schemes that endanger real Texans,” Paxton said. “His deceptive and unlawful scheme to lure people with free housing for the purpose of conducting a political takeover is a disgustingly fraudulent plot to line his own pockets.”
The suit, seeking a temporary restraining order, claimed Tanner had moved people onto the land without providing adequate utilities such as sewer and water and so violated sanitation laws. It also alleged he had violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by misleading his followers into believing they would receive free homes and other amenities.
[…]
The temporary injunction was soon made permanent, meaning his followers had to vacate it. Yet Tanner sidestepped the order by purchasing a second 10-acre plot about 150 yards away from the first, and relocating his supporters there, court documents said.
State prosecutors took another swing at the new property at a late December hearing, seeking a second restraining order preventing Tanner’s followers from living there without proof they were responsibly disposing of waste water, or from luring new residents to Loving County by promising them free housing.
“What we have is a blatant misrepresentation of what Mr. Tanner would actually provide,” assistant attorney general Andrew Brown said in a hearing. “He promised homes and he provided homelessness. He provided a health and safety crisis, essentially.”
Tanner responded that the state’s effort to shut down his settlement was motivated by race. “A Black man bought property inside a county where there has been no Black owners,” he said. Now, he added, the state is suddenly trying to find anything it can to stop it: “The state has literally thrown up a rock hoping that it hits something.”
State District Judge Alan Nicholas granted the temporary order, but since then Tanner, who is representing himself in court, has managed to fend off a permanent ban on the property using various legal maneuvers.
Legal correspondence to addresses he provided has been returned as undeliverable, according to court filings. After ignoring prosecutors’ request for various documents, at the last minute he submitted a social media video and two text messages, the filings said.
In November, Tanner didn’t show up for a scheduled deposition. Two hours before the re-scheduled December deposition was to begin, he said he couldn’t appear because of other legal motions, according to court records.
When he eventually did sit for questioning earlier this month, by Zoom, his camera didn’t work. When it was turned on, he responded to each of the prosecutor’s 130 questions by pleading his 5th Amendment right to remain silent, court documents show.
Two weeks ago, the attorney general’s office asked the judge to sanction him for his tactics. “Malcolm Tanner has made a career of promising what he will not deliver,” it said. “’Free homes’ that do not exist, ’Free land’ he does not own, and compliance with court orders he ignores.”
But another hearing earlier this week produced only more legal back-and-forth, and a decision on the permanent injunction was postponed until the end of May. Tanner’s followers can continue to live there pending the outcome of the case, the sheriff’s department said.
The start-and-stop legal proceedings have left the status of Tanner’s local political ambitions up in the air. According to Sheriff Dave Landersman, who also serves as Loving County’s voter registrar, six of Tanner’s followers have filed to run for three county offices in November as Independent candidates.
He said that 30 of the newcomers, who have moved to West Texas from Georgia, Mississippi and Oklahoma, among other states, have registered to vote, listing one of Tanner’s two properties as their residence. Yet given the permanent order that nobody may live on the first, and the similar temporary order on the second, he said it’s not clear how either address may be used as a legal residence to register to vote locally.
See here and here for some background. On the one hand, I have no doubt that Malcom Tanner is a grifter and a con man, and that the people who have followed him out to the miserably hot, arid, and empty nowhere that is Loving County are going to end up worse off than they were to begin with. On the other hand, it would be the funniest thing ever to happen in Texas politics if these weirdos and stragglers managed to win their elections and actually take over this dumb-but-very-rich county. And besides, no one deserves the legal DGAF shenanigans that Tanner is pulling more than Ken Paxton, who has only the barest claim to have a greater respect for the law than Tanner is demonstrating. Frankly, every interaction Paxton has for the rest of his life, from ordering an Egg McMuffin combo at the drive-thru on up should be met with a similar level of absurdity and evasion. It still wouldn’t balance the cosmic scales for all the damages he’s done, but it would be a decent start.
Kuff, you’re spot on. Quite entertaining.
Re: “When he eventually did sit for questioning earlier this month, by Zoom, his camera didn’t work. When it was turned on, he responded to each of the prosecutor’s 130 questions by pleading his 5th Amendment right to remain silent, court documents show. Two weeks ago, the attorney general’s office asked the judge to sanction him for his tactics…”
I hope the AG isn’t asking the judge to sanction Turner solely for invoking the 5th… ’cause, ya know, plenty of State and Federal elected officials have invoked the 5th to avoid answering questions lately…
Per the internet:
Donald Trump did not invoke the Fifth Amendment while serving as president (2017–2021). However, in August 2022, after leaving office, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 440 times during a deposition for the New York Attorney General’s civil investigation into his business practices.
Based on available public records and news reports, there is no record of Ken Paxton formally invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in a court proceeding while serving as the Texas Attorney General.
While he faced intense pressure to do so during his 2023 impeachment trial and various civil lawsuits, he did not take the stand to plead the Fifth.
2023 Impeachment: Managers of the Texas House impeachment trial argued that Paxton could be compelled to testify and would have to invoke his 5th Amendment rights on the stand. However, Paxton did not testify during the Senate impeachment trial.
Whistleblower Lawsuit: He was threatened with having to testify or invoke the 5th in a lawsuit brought by top aides he fired.
Securities Fraud Case: Before his 2024 plea deal, it was noted he could have invoked the 5th had the case gone to trial.