Hello, and welcome to the trib Cast for Tuesday, September second.

I am Eleanor Klibanoff, a lawn politics reporter, joined as always by Matthew Watkins, editor in Chief.

Hello, it is three.

Full months since sine die and the regular session version.

We are still somehow doing the same thing.

Although we should say we're recording this on Friday, and by the time this air is on Tuesday.

Who knows what could happen.

Speaker Burrows said he would get everybody out of here by Labor Day.

That does not seem to be happening.

Yeah.

Well, and now no one cares because Taylor Swift's getting married exactly.

Yeah, the main priorities, the whole legislature shuts down.

Did you guys have a bet on who could talk about Taylor Swift first?

That was like such a quick Yeah, there's a solid Segeay.

Well, this is all just a my attempt to hijack the podcast to talk about the.

Phones in schools ban Yeah, and how is it going so far?

Well?

This I feel like the Taylor Swift engagement was the big test.

Yeah, and my daughter, as I think we've maybe discussed before, it goes to an All Girls' School where this was just in place, and I really it took everything I had not to dispatch a reporter to the school on the day of the announcement to see, like this is the true test of will the kids actually not have their phones in school?

And I would like to report that my daughter found out in seventh period, but it was because a teacher told.

Her okay, which is like how it should be.

And apparently this teacher said, I have really exciting news, and uh, they were like what.

She was like, it's really exciting.

They're like what, and she's like, Taylor Swift's getting married.

And my daughter went yes, very loudly in the middle of the class, wow, and no one else.

So, you know, I think the kids have moved on to K pop didn't this.

Is the right school for her.

I'm just going to say it as someone who has.

You know, a lot of input in where your daughter goes to school.

This is not the right place.

It feels like if this if there were any school that were you know, would be excited, it would be Anne Richards All Girls School.

I like to think Anne Richards would have been excited for Taylor's you know, she was a girl power lady.

She was yeah, yeah, but yeah, you know she like she kind of had like a country twing tour.

I can see Anne Richards in like a I could see.

Anne Richards going to the Erastur.

Like a friendship.

Oh for sure, Yeah, she would love that.

And you know, I'm glad to hear the cell phone.

I mean, this is obviously so different and like I shouldn't even bring these two things up in the same conversation.

But like I was in middle school when nine to.

Eleven, I knew this is where you were going because when he said seventh period, I was like, that's.

Where I was.

And like a teacher, I couldn't have been.

Actually, my school like really mishandled it.

They got they made announcement that was like teachers don't tell the students anything.

Yeah, that's how it was with me.

And then it was I grew up in New Jersey, so it was just like a slow drip of kids leaving school and we didn't know why.

Yeah, but Taylor Swift news feels announceable yeah, and more positive.

Yeah, and like no way of comparison.

And just a hard transition.

That voice you're hearing as I assume true fans of the of the Texas Tribune will know, you know, our new Jersey girl, our Bruce Springsteen fan and Taylor Swift and Kate McGee investigative reporter.

Is Bruce Springsteen married?

Yes, his wife performs with him like on the road.

Sorry, sorry for not knowing that it's chances, Kate.

It's like, no, I know, I know.

You know a lot of a generation of you know, man oessensibly are sad that they can't marry Taylor Swift, and Kate is mad that she can't.

Bruce Sprecing's in his eighties?

Is that true?

No?

No, no, seventies look it up.

Okay whatever.

I had this conversation funnily enough with my daughter recently because we have this family playlist and oh, he's seventy five and like in the car, so everyone stops shouting each other about what music to this, and we all can add an equal number.

And I have backstreets from the Bruce Springsteen on that album, and my kids hate that song.

It's like eight minutes long, which is exactly why I put it on there.

And they were like, is this song like from like the like the fifties?

Like, No, it's from the late seven these and then I looked it up and I was like, wait, that means it's and it's actually from seventy five, which means it's fifty years old.

Yeah, it is.

I think actually it was like fifty years old last week.

I think the So we're really timely here.

Yeah, well we are.

None of this is what we're here to talk about, but we appreciate everyone sticking through that.

What we are here to talk about is Kate's recent reporting on honestly one of the most interesting characters in Texas politics, which is Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.

Kate has been doing a series of stories looking at some allegations against Commissioner Miller, and just wanted to talk with her about Kate, maybe you can start us off, tell us like, who is Sid Miller and entirely separately, what is an agriculture commissioner?

He's six years younger than Bruce Springsteen.

That actually yes, I mean Bruce looks really good.

Yeah, all right, So Sid Miller is has been the Agriculture commission since twenty fourteen, about ten years.

He was a state rep.

For like from two thousand to he lost his election in twenty twelve, and that's how he shifted over and ran for ag commissioner and has been has won three terms since.

The Agriculture commissioner is the person who oversees and regulates the agriculture industry and the state everything from livestock, cattle to plants.

They do like biosecurity, making sure people aren't bringing like quarantined plants or fruits or seeds or anything into the state that could harm the agriculture industry here.

And he has been, as you said, a character and had since he's run.

Since he's been commissioner, he's gotten come under fire in a variety of ways.

For some of his activity as commissioner.

Really early in his tenure he got hit with a few ethical scandals, one of which he was discovered to have used state money to travel to Oklahoma to get what was known as a Jesus shot, which was a shot that was claimed to take away all of your pain forever.

He's also like a cattle roper and is really like involved in kind of the like the rodeo world outside of his work as ad commissioner.

He eventually, I think paid the state back for that trip, but has also gotten dinged for kind of ethical violations with the Ethics Commission and campaign finance reporting.

And he made another trip to a rodeo in Mississippi and used some state money for that.

And so he's kind of gotten dinged for all of these kind of ethical questions over the years, but has maintained, you know, been able to be re elected.

He has a you know, he has a strong maga.

Donald Trump's supporter really runs on his kind of bona fides and connections and like really builds up his connections to Trump, and that's been successful for him every election.

One of the state's earliest and most enthusiastic Trump backers right in including I believe in twenty twenty four did his sort of went out on his own with a bus tour of of of swing states backing Trump kind of I think, self funded, kind of independently making that push.

Yeah, and really like I mean, I think a lot of similarities between the two of them, right in terms of you know, very bombastic, very sort of no unapologetically themselves let's say.

Yeah, I mean, he has he's followed Trump in the same kind of like strong social media presence.

He's come under.

Fire for like a variety of racist or homophobic things that he's post did on a social media pages, and you know, has defended his himself and you know, continues to kind of be inflammatory on social media, but it works for him, and it's you know, very similar to kind of how we see Trump use social media.

He also as Agriculture commissioner.

There's nothing to sid Miller really, but he is the guy who had to handle the mysterious seed thing.

Do you remember this when seeds kept being mailed to.

People, Oh, yeah.

Allegedly from China and nobody really knew what that was about.

Yeah, I don't know what.

I don't remember the I.

Don't remember the resolution that just I just remembered that anyway.

I mean, obviously, like a very important role in Texas, a heavily agriculture state, like we also are the state that you know, the US Agriculture Secretary came from Texas, so a really important role.

And I will also say, like not all states have elected agriculture commissioners, some are appointed, so Texas this is one that you know, it's an elected role, so it's kind of it plays a different role than other states, you know, and other agencies in the state right are appointed.

So now let's talk about like sort of the other main character in your reporting, which is Todd Smith.

Who is Todd Smith and all of this.

So, Todd Smith has been Sid Miller's political consultants since he first ran for the House twenty five years ago.

He did, That's how they met.

He worked on his campaign.

Sid liked what he did and kept him along for the ride ever since and has paid him as a consultant.

Every year since.

Todd Smith has also been like a prolific lobbyist.

He's lobbied, you know, especially in the early two thousands, was lobbying for all different kinds of statewide and a national organizations here in Texas.

Every thing from like the American Cancer Society to like home healthcare companies to you know, local cities like the city of Stephenville where Sid Miller's from.

Todd Smith was their lobbyist.

And also which kind of becomes more relevant later on, he was lobbying for hemp farmers as well, in like the around twenty twenty when the legalization of hemp farming happened in Texas.

And so he's just kind of remained a person in the capital for the last two decades.

So he's lobbying for hemp farmers.

The Agriculture Commissioner oversees, I mean it sort of walks through twenty twenty twenty, hemp farming sort of becomes.

Yeah, twenty nineteen, the twenty eighteen federally, the federal government legalizes hemp farming.

Twenty nineteen, Texas follows suit legalizes the industrial hemp and like hemp related products or extracts like CBD oil if it's under point three percent THC.

The idea of being farmers in Texas need a new cash crop, this will help the struggling in agriculture industry and everything.

Yeah, and it went amazing and we never looked back.

There's no regrets at all.

Podcast over Yeah exactly.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

So and so, because the Agriculture Department overseas farming, they were the agency that was tasked with kind of planning out like how they were going to regulate this new crop and this new you know avenue for farmers.

And so they the state or the legislature said when they.

Legalized it that there would be.

You know, an unlimited amount of hemp licenses that farmers could get.

They'd be one hundred dollars each, and you know, sid Miller's department was tasked with figuring out how to do kind of like the day to day paperwork minutia of regulation of this new industry.

And then, much like the high school senior who sells an elevator pass to high school freshman, Todd Smith starts allegedly sort of trying to make money off of these licenses.

Is that the allegation, yes so, And this never went to court because he eventually pleaded guilty to commercial bribery and.

Settled last year.

But he was accused of.

Going to He and another man were accused of going to hemp farmers or people who were interested and interested in investing in the hemp industry and soliciting money from them, a variety of money, some you know around some people said they were asked to pay like twenty five thousand dollars because he was saying there was going to be a limited amount of hemp licenses and if people gave this money, they would get to the front of the line.

And so they started, you know, asking people for checks.

People started giving this money to him or the other the other individual involved, and they were also soliciting money, saying that they needed money to conduct a survey of Texans like opinions about HEMP, to be able to convince lawmakers to support this.

Industry, et cetera, et cetera.

The arrest STAFFI David.

Eventually, when Todd Smith was arrested's found that he took money from people, and then never this the surveys were never conducted.

And they the idea here is, in reality, a license to grow him in Texas costs one hundred dollars, and he was charging.

Twenty five thousand dollars.

For something that people didn't need, and like, little did he know.

In five years, we have lots of surveys on how people feel.

About HEMP because it's all we can talk about.

So at this point, Commissioner Miller is not implicated in any of this.

Right.

The operation is that.

His political consultant is sort of doing this allegedly unrelated to him, but you know, using sort of the power of that office.

Correct, It's worth noting the timing of his guilty plea though, can you talk about right and.

I will say before we get into the like there were if when you read the investigative files from DPS there and the arrest affidavit like he was using the power of the office.

But there was also allegations made that he was like taking this like the seal of the office letterhead and then using that print letters that he was sending to kind of give his scheme some like legitimacy.

So it's not like you or me trying to do this where people would be like, you don't have access to these HEMP licenses.

Right, It's like right, he's right, and yeah, exactly.

And so he gets arrested and indicted for fraud and commercial bribery.

The case, you know, is making its way.

The Travis County DA's office is prosecuting and his It was set for trial in late October of last year, a few weeks before sid Miller was subpoena to testify in the trial, and a week later Todd Smith, who had previously pled not guilty, pleaded guilty to commercial bribery in it, with a deferred adjudication of about two years and a like one year freeze on being able to lobby in the state, and he did not plead guilty.

To the fraud charge.

Like the implication of that timing being that they didn't want sid Miller to have.

To be deposed.

That is I think people's understanding.

That's the connection some people are drawing between A and B.

Yes, gotcha.

So then, as I would presume, Todd Smith chagrined, chased out of state government, not allowed to return.

Yeah, I mean previously, when this all happened and Tod Smith was arrested, like Sid Miller separated himself and distanced himself from Todd Smith, said he had stopped using him as a political consultant.

Was really like trying to create distance.

And then, you know, October he pleads guilty.

And then a few months later, in January of this year, Sid Miller hires Todd Smith to be the chief of staff for the entire for his executive office in the Department of Agriculture.

You know, Tod Smith had never been employed by the Department of Agriculture before, he was just his political consultant.

But now he is serving as Sid Miller's political consultant and the chief of staff for this agency.

Shocking a lot of people who were confused and frustrated that Sid Miller would bring this guy who he had who had pleaded guilty to essentially you know, defrauding the agency.

Now is the chief of chief of staff.

Basically to repeat that, someone who while not working for the agency but working for the head of the agency, pleaded guilty toally illegally an illegal scheme to sell licenses that he didn't have a right to license from the Department of Agriculture, pled guilty and then was later hired by the agency to be essentially like, if not second in command, at least like a very high ranking person who you know, has a lot of control over access to the elected official and presumably a lot of control over the operations of the agency.

And yeah, exactly, it seems like he's second or third in command.

There's Sid Miller, then there's a deputy commissioner, and then Todd is really overseeing a lot of increasingly a lot of departments in the within the the Agriculture Agency.

And I mean your reporting has shown that, you know, even before he was hired, people raise a lot of concerns about sort of Todd Smith's influence on the agency.

Like what has like what has your reporting shown about what the concerns are around him.

Yeah, so our first story that we did and why it's kind of important to know.

The backstory of the Todd Smith case is that, as you know, once that case closed with DPS, all those documents and investigative files became public, and so we requested the investigative file, and that's how we learned of a variety of other allegations that were made by some of against Sid Miller in the course of this investigation to DPS about Sid Miller not related to Todd Smith's like bribery case, but related to Sid Miller's hemp farm and his like activity that he was doing.

And so we in those documents and we you know, we got those document written like police files and recordings of interviews that DPS did with all of these some of them were at the time they were working, they were employees, high level employees in the Department of Agriculture.

Many of them are now former employees.

We can get into that later.

And friends of Sid Miller's who never worked for the agency, but you know, we're really close with Sid over the years what so like.

Basically, in the course of investigating these allegations against Todd Smith, which eventually did end up with an indictment and a guilty plea, other people started bringing up other stuff that has not generated any sort of criminal.

CORRECTDPS said, even as I asked them recently, they said they are not investigating any of the further claims that had been made.

But so what happened was in the Todd Smith investigation there were multiple claims made about Sid Miller's hemp farm.

So Sid Miller, you know, is regulating the agency, you know, regulating the hemp industry as part of the Department of Agriculture, and is also one of the people who got a hemp license and started growing hemp, which is legal, sure, and his there are his employees alleged.

The following one was a man, Freddy Vest, who no longer works with the department.

He said that he was told by an employee came up to him at the agg Department and said that they had gotten an email from the Drug Enforcement and Administration saying that they were requesting information into Sid Miller's hemp farm.

Freddy Vest was a friend of Sid Millers had worked for the Department of Agricultures since Sid became the commissioner in twenty fourteen.

He went and told Sid Miller and said, hey, the DEA is asking questions about your hemp farm.

The DEA was upset, I mean Sid Miller was upset, got nervous, upset with Freddy for even telling him about this.

But Freddy Vest in the course of this investigation tells the DPS about this separately.

Another person, Michael Hackney, who was a longtime friend of Sid Miller, is a cattle roper.

They were very close.

He was like living on Sid Miller's property in his motor home for a period of years.

Told he was interviewed by DPS and told them that later that year.

This is all happening in twenty twenty two.

Later that year, Sid Miller showed up at his motor home rent one night with like three bags of marijuana gummies and like rolled joints and asked him to get rid of this product because the DA was looking into his farm and he didn't want to.

He couldn't They couldn't find this stuff on his property.

All of this, you know, is reported.

There's like some question of whether Travis County DA was even informed of of Michael Hackney's interview.

There's some back and.

Forth there that we but it never makes it into any of the the case with Todd Smith because it's you know, irrelevant to that case.

And Miller denies all of this.

He flatly denies.

He did say that Freddy vest told him the DEA was looking into his hemp farm, but said he checked it out and it was not like there was nothing to it.

The DEEA told us that they could not confirm or deny any investigation into anything, and they don't.

They routinely do not confirm any investigation and after unless it's been fully adjudicated by the courts.

But he says, and he told me, you know, if I if I were to do that, if I were to like get had product I needed to get rid of, I would have done it myself.

Like why would I have asked someone else to get rid of it for me?

That was his defense when we asked him about it.

But yeah, and also I think a great quote which is Freddy is a damn drama queen.

Yeah, which you know, he's got a he's got away with words.

But then subsequently what was alleged, you know this the Todd Smith case is settled, he pleads guilty.

He gets hired in January.

In May of this year, Freddy is still working at the Department of agriculture, and he and others are getting like increasingly concerned about Todd Smith's presence something that they have that DPS like UH interviews during the Todd Smith investigation found repeatedly over and over that people were raising concerns with Todd Smith's presence of the TDA even before he was hired.

That people were told, like.

Don't take one on one meetings with him.

People were saying that they would refuse to go to meetings with Todd Smith because they were concerned about his involvement.

Freddie Vest tells some of this to Sid Miller in May of this year, saying, you know, we're concerned about Todd's presence.

In the course of this conversation, Freddy Vest tells Sid Miller that there are people out there who like have illicit photos of Sid Miller, and that there are like people don't want Todd Smith around, and that like Freddie is concerned that they might make these photos public or like turn against Sid Miller.

Sid Miller takes this as a black as blackmail and thinks and thinks that Freddy is saying you need to get rid of Todd Smith and let or people are going to release photos he fires Freddy and reports him to DPS, saying that he's been like for coursing a public official.

In the course of that investigation, Freddy then shares additional information about sid Miller's HEMP activity.

You can tell that this is like extremely messy.

And to be clear, DPS does not pursue charges against Freddy.

Right correct.

They investigated and closed the case and did not charge him with any crimes.

He also said he's just a damn drama que It does finding.

It does seem to be like there's two possibilities here, one being these folks are telling the truth about sid Miller and sid Miller has gotten tangled up in a lot of very questionable activities.

Two, sid Miller hired a bunch of liars and drama queens and and also someone who you know, pled guilty to bribery, and that calls in to question, you know, some of the decision making of who he's bringing into his agency.

Yeah, and he like dismisses everything that people have said at these former employees have said as like disgruntled former employees.

The other accusation that came out in this conversation once DPS started investigating investigating this bribery accusation.

Freddie told them about another former employee at the Department of Agriculture.

His name is Walt Roberts.

Walt is also a character.

He's been at the department since twenty fourteen.

He's also like a world class fiddler and like an actor and was in the second season of mo I don't know if you saw that show on Netflix.

So he's he's got his hands in different you know, he's a runaissance man.

The Taylor Swift the Agriculture department.

But he said that Walt had told him about a time also in twenty twenty two where Walt went to Bastrop with Sid Miller where and Sid Miller was bringing a bunch of bags of his harvested hemp and that he exchanged it for these role these little black tubes that had these rolled joints in them.

And the accusation that was made was that Sid was exchanging his hemp for taking his hemp there they were spraying it with synthetic THHC and then giving it back to to Sid.

That was that was the accusations.

Illegal illegal, Okay, so spraying it with enough THHC that it was going above the point three threshold.

Sid Miller also denies this.

He denied that he ever sold hemp in bas Drop at all.

And but Walt Roberts, you know, we reached out to Walt Roberts.

He didn't want to talk for this story, but he did confirm Freddy's accounting to DPS and said that he was very.

Uncomfortable with the whole situation.

But again, it was just raising additional questions and allegations about what Sid was doing with his his hemp that he had harvested.

Right, And again, sort of to your point, Matthew, like either all of these people are cooking up very very elaborate lies about their boss or former boss and or boss or you know, to state police, to state police, right or potentially commission Miller is evolved in some like you know, I mean, all of this feels like sort of playing at the edges of a thing that you know, they are really debating at the capitol, right, which is like how should we regulate hemp and THHC and like where should the limits be?

And it's a relatively new industry here, and like you know, but certainly playing at the edges of legality.

So you've written you know, a couple of stories about this with with a lot of the revelations that you just described.

What has the reaction been among Sid Miller's colleagues and you know, fellow statewide leaders in the in the Republican Party.

Sid's colleagues have been relatively silent, to be honest, they're from my understanding is they have been told not to talk to the media, and so there's been a lot of silence from the Department.

I mean, I think people who the people involved in the story anyway, so that's been kind of the major reaction I feel like, I mean, a lot of the same from the Republican Party.

To be honest, there has been some criticism on social media, but you know, I haven't seen there's been no like defense of SID at this point, and from public statements from lawmakers.

Maybe you can talk a little bit about like I think people see these stories go up on our website or like a lot of news websites, and it's like and certainly I don't know that we've heard this from Commissioner Miller, but like we're certainly in an era where I think people are very quick to dismiss sort of investigative reporting.

Are these kind of findings you talk a little bit about like what it takes to get a story like this.

We're not just like saying, like some guy told us this and we're putting it up on the internet, right right.

I mean, these were all everything that we reported on for the most part.

That was in both of the stories, especially the first one which was about Sid.

The allegations about Miller's activity with his hemp farm, our allegations.

Made in public records.

I mean, we put in multiple open records requests to DPS for these investgateve files, for the interviews that they conducted.

And this story is simply laying out what those allegations are for people to decide for themselves, you know what they think right now.

I mean, Sid Miller denies all of it.

And but these these were people who were approached by DPS and asked questions, you know, and interviewed.

That's also a thing to note.

They were not you know, I think we saw with like Ken Paxton like his and the whistleblower trial, like the whistleblowers went to the FBI, like these people did not go out of their way to report Sid Miller.

This was information they shared when they were asked by DPS to be interviewed.

So we I mean, it's a it was a lot of reading through hundreds of pages of files, listening to these audio interviews, reaching out to the people who were interviewed in the story, whether they wanted to elaborate or you know, corroborate what was what was kind of said in these in these investigative files and police reports, you know, making sure that DPS was summarizing the conversation accurately.

A lot of people did not want to talk on the record, so we really had we really relied a lot.

On what they said in those actual interviews.

You know, then it was going to Sid Miller laying out the claims that were in these documents, giving him a chance to respond to every single accusation.

And you know, we're continuing to file open records requests with the TDA to to continue reporting on this story.

Great, Yeah, another Sid Miller burning Sid Miller questions.

I just I guess sort of an observation.

It's it's interesting to watch this play out, right, I Mean, the silence among elected officials is curious, right, I Mean, on the one hand, you you know, maybe it's not surprising to see fellow republic and sort of not go after, you know, members of their own party and members of their own actions.

And the silence and lack of defense could possibly be read as not really wanting to be associated with our back but also not you know, wanting to stick their neck out and everything like that.

It's also just kind of an interesting situation because, right I mean, we're in the middle of this conversation about like how harmful is THHC, how harmful is marijuana?

Like is this really a bad thing?

Should we be allowed people being allowing people to buy it and all those types of stuff.

At the same time, it's the Agriculture Department's job to be in some ways putting up some guardrails and making sure that this is happening ethically and you know, all above board and raising questions about whether the Agriculture Commissioner himself is involved with that.

So I don't know.

I mean, on the other hand, you know, we're not that far off from the impeachment of the Attorney general right there.

There has been a willingness in the past for Republicans to go after Republicans in this way, and so it's just been curious to me to watch the silence here and try to understand what that means.

Yeah, I agree, go ahead.

I mean I was going to say, we also just to add on to that, where he's heading into a reelection next year, he has an opponent who's raised like I think in the July reporting filing he had raised like four hundred thousand dollars to Sid Miller's seventy thousand dollars.

Sid is not raised a ton of money, and maybe that will change as things go.

I remember his last election too, he you know, there were some state lawmakers then who stayed out of the race in terms of endorsing a candidate.

So we'll see if that is repeated this time, or if people decide to publicly back him.

But I think, well, what happens in the next few months will be interesting and next year will be interesting.

As we watched the campaign roll out.

Yeah, I mean, and there's certainly a case in you know, the Republican primary electorate where folks are willing to look past ethical violations or concerns about how they run their office if they view you as a warrior for their side right against you know, concerns about you know, how liberals or even in some cases moderate establishment republicans are running the state.

If you are willing to go after them, or you were willing to fight on behalf of those frustrations, they'll look past a lot.

And Sid Miller is definitely willing to fight and willing to kind of take that stance in that maga approach to government.

So it'll be interesting to.

Watch, just especially notable considering the role the Agriculture Commissioner plays on the front lines of the culture wars.

But certainly I think he has he has made his name that way for sure.

Kate, thank you so much for joining us.

We'll look forward to the rest of your reporting, but you can find it all at Texas Bune dot org.

Matthew, thank you as always.

Our producers are Rob and Chris.

You can find the Trip Cast anywhere you get your podcasts or on YouTube, and we will see you next week.