The Brief: Video Of Lawmakers Shared With Breitbart Texas

by John Reynolds

 

The news organization Breitbart Texas confirmed on Sunday to the Tribune that it has received a copy of the footage of lawmakers shot by a nonprofit tied to conservative causes. But Breitbart Texas has no plans to release any of the footage before the end of the legislative session in three weeks. 

Managing Director Brandon Darby told the Tribune’s Terri Langford that “he, his fellow Breitbart Texas staffers and their legal team have to go through all of it first. ‘I don’t really think that something like this coming out during the ending of the legislative session is helpful to the state at all.'” 

The work of the videographers caused a stir last week after several lawmakers told reporters that they were confronted at the Capitol and, in the case of one lawmaker, at dinner with his wife. On Friday, one of those videographers had the tables turned on him by a pair of lobbyists. 

Joseph Basel, president of the American Phoenix Foundation, told Langford the plan is “to give entire copies of archives to other trusted media outlets in the future after the project comes to completion” and the group is seeking to highlight lawmakers’ behavior while in Austin. 

Darby said he’s seen just a fraction of the 800 hours of video made by the group but he signaled interest in what he saw. “Some of it is very newsworthy,” he said. 

John Reynolds is the newsletter editor for the Texas Tribune where this article originally published and reprinted here through a news partnership between the Texas Tribune and Corridor News.