Empower Texans staffers suspended after joking about Greg Abbott’s wheelchair use

Two staffers for the hardline conservative group Empower Texans were caught on an audio recording this week disparaging Gov. Greg Abbott with vulgarities and joking about his wheelchair use.

Abbott’s office and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick denounced the comments Friday and Empower Texans said the staffers were “suspended from all public activities with the organization immediately.”

The comments came on audio for a podcast featuring Empower Texans vice president Cary Cheshire and general counsel Tony McDonald. The audio was published Thursday, apparently inadvertently, and replaced later with an edited episode.

In the unedited version, McDonald and Cheshire laughed after the show about references highlighting Abbott’s wheelchair use since a 1984 accident.

Both used vulgarities and obscenities to describe Abbott in venting about the governor’s decision allowing local officials to order businesses to require customers to wear masks amid the coronavirus pandemic.

An Abbott spokesman denounced the comments.

“It reveals a lot about an organization’s character and morals that uses profanity to mock a person in a wheelchair, and this audio is disgusting and hate-filled,” Abbott spokesman John Wittman said in a statement.

“It is sad to think about what else this group may be saying about people behind their backs when they think they aren’t being recorded. Regardless of this despicable tape, the Governor remains keenly focused on containing the spread of COVID-19, while also unifying the state as we celebrate Juneteenth.”

Patrick also condemned the remarks, writing on Twitter: “The hateful [Empower Texans] attack mocking Governor Abbott is outrageous, vulgar and completely unacceptable. [McDonald] and [Cheshire] are persona non grata in my book and anyone [at Empower Texans] who does not condemn this behavior.”

Empower Texans CEO Michael Quinn Sullivan issued a statement Friday afternoon saying he was “heartbroken by the language and tone” used by Cheshire and McDonald and that he has already personally apologized to Abbott.

“Both have been suspended from all public activities with the organization immediately, and additional internal actions will be taken,” Sullivan said. “Whether it was a private conversation or not is unimportant; it was wrong and unacceptable.”

Empower Texans has been a major force in the Texas GOP’s civil war over the last several years, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into primaries, particularly for the state House.

“Now the masses get to see what many of us have known for a long time: A once reputable & respected policy organization, ET has turned in to nothing more than a sanctimonious sewer,” Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, tweeted.

Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, said the hot-mic moment illuminated how Empower Texans has been “seeking to destroy the Republican Party from within.”“They are the ANTIFA of the right,” Patterson wrote on Facebook.

Patrick, Leach and Patterson have each received campaign contributions from Empower Texans in the past.

This story was originally published June 19, 2020 at 3:59 PM.