'Intimate and embarrassing': Texas moves to hide TKO (UFC/WWE) contracts & communications
Release of information would be 'highly objectionable' and 'not of legitimate concern to public'
Now we have a clue as to who may have been behind the decision of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office to not file a legal answer to WWE's declaratory & injunctive relief lawsuit against the State three months ago to stop taxpayers from discovering how much Texas residents paid the TKO tax vampires.
Did Texas Governor Greg Abbott's office step in and make the call?
You don't have to take my word for it. The obfuscation and delay is detailed in written words by the Governor's Office in a legal brief submitted to the Attorney General regarding WWE records requested by Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics over government contracts worth millions of dollars that the state of Texas gave to TKO.
Means, motive, and opportunity.
The means for that opportunity came in the form of the AG's office receiving legal briefs from parties named in the records sought by Mr. Thurston. That includes both TKO and the Governor's office.
Mr. Thurston requested records relating to the state of Texas paying millions of dollars to TKO in the form of contracts for fight shows. His first records request was to the city of San Antonio regarding WWE’s 2023 Agreement for The Alamodome.
The City asked the Attorney General for an Opinion Letter regarding what could be undisclosed. As part of that process, WWE was given a chance to response with a brief. This gave the AG's office an opportunity to let WWE race to the courthouse to sue them in Austin, Texas. There's the opportunity.
And now we are starting to get a picture as to the motive. Reading someone's mind is the most dangerous and inaccurate game you can play as a reporter, private investigator, or attorney. In this case, however, we don't have to play the guessing game.
What the legal tactics by TKO, Governor Greg Abbott's office, and Ken Paxton's Attorney General's office reveal is a fascinating yet horrific picture regarding the diminishing standing of Texas taxpayer rights in 2024.
“A chilling effect on frank and open discussion” for us, but not for you
After WWE filed suit in February of 2024 against Ken Paxton regarding the Alamodome records disclosure, Mr. Thurston filed two more records requests, this time to Governor Greg Abbott’s office. The first request was Wrestlemania 38 at Cowboys Stadium. The second request was for the Royal Rumble 2023 Alamodome event.
In response to both requests, the Governor’s Office belched out copypasta citing 552.111 of the state’s Government Code:
“The information marked in Exhibit B includes such communications subject to section 552.111 of the Government Code. The information at issue reflects internal communications between OOG employees and officials communicating in their official policy-making capacities. In the marked information, the individuals were providing advice, opinions, and recommendations about matters of broad scope, and the release of these deliberations would have a chilling effect on the frank and open discussion necessary for the decision-making process.
Thus, the OOG asserts that the information marked under section 552.111 in Exhibit B is excepted from disclosure under section 552.111 of the Government Code and the deliberative process privilege.”
This kind of obstruction is to be expected and is why litigating these matters is so important. The problem is that government agencies — like the AG’s office — know full well that the prospects of an individual suing the state for public records is slim to none.
But that doesn’t mean the rejection letter isn’t revelatory. In fact, the Governor’s Office raised an eye-catching affirmative defense regarding the Alamodome 2023 contract:
“The OOG asserts the information marked in Exhibit B consists of information that is intimate and embarrassing and not of legitimate concern to the public, including financial decisions that do not relate to transactions between an individual and a governmental body. Therefore, the OOG asserts the marked information is confidential under common-law privacy and must be withheld under section 552.101 of the Government Code.”
Just what exactly are these "intimate and embarrassing" details?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The MMA Draw Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.