“Former Sid Miller allies told police the ag commissioner feared the DEA, told a friend to get rid of marijuana” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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A former friend of Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told a Texas Ranger that in 2022 Miller asked him to dispose of three bags of marijuana cigarettes and gummies because he was afraid that the Drug Enforcement Administration might find them on his property.

At the time, the friend, Michael Hackney, was living in a motorhome on Miller’s Stephenville ranch, where Miller was licensed to grow hemp.

“I’ve got to get rid of this. I’ve had it at the house, and if the DEA comes, I can’t get caught with this stuff,” Miller said, according to Hackney. “He says, ‘You do with it whatever you want. Get rid of it. But don’t leave it here.’”

Hackney added, “He was really, really nervous about that deal.”

The Texas Tribune obtained a recording of the Texas Ranger’s July 2024 interview with Hackney through an open records request to the Texas Department of Public Safety, but has not been able to confirm whether Miller was — or has ever been — under investigation by the DEA or any other law enforcement agency. He has not been charged with a crime, and a Department of Public Safety spokesperson said Miller is not under active investigation by state police. A DEA spokesperson said the federal agency could not comment on any ongoing or past investigations unless they are fully adjudicated in the courts.

In an interview with the Tribune, Miller flatly denied the accusations.

“If I had marijuana cigarettes and gummies and I thought the DEA was going to investigate me, I damn sure wouldn’t have given them to anybody else to get rid of. I’d have just gotten rid of them myself,” he said. “I would never do that and it didn’t happen.”

Law enforcement records reviewed by the Tribune show Miller entangled in a morass of accusations related to his hemp farming operation made by former associates. The records were from two separate state investigations, neither of which targeted Miller. One investigation was into bribery accusations against a top Miller aide. The second was in response to an accusation of illegal coercion that Miller made against one of his own high-ranking Texas Departure of Agriculture employees. Miller accused the employee of trying to blackmail him with threats of explicit photos.

Miller dismissed the accusations made to law enforcement as lies from a disgruntled former employee and former friend. He said DPS has never reached out to question him about the claims.

Recorded interviews conducted during both investigations revealed people close to Miller believed his hemp farm was under scrutiny by the DEA.

That included Freddy Vest, a former agriculture department director who oversaw the hemp licensing program and who Miller accused of blackmail. DPS investigated the claim but did not charge Vest with a crime.

During that investigation, Vest told officers in June of this year that a colleague had informed him three or four years ago that the DEA had contacted the agency asking for information about Miller’s hemp farm.

When Vest relayed the information to Miller in early 2022, he said Miller grew angry.

“I said, ‘Sid, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I told you I’d never lie to you, and I never hold anything back from you. … I’ve heard that there’s been a DEA agent that is inquiring on your hemp program,’” Vest recounted to the officers.

“[Miller] said, ‘What’s a DEA?’ I said, ‘Drug Enforcement Agency.’ And so he went back home. He got mad at me for telling him or that I knew about it,” Vest added to the officers.

Miller confirmed Vest told him the DEA was looking into his hemp operation, but said he was wrong.

“Freddy is a damn drama queen. He’s full of it,” Miller told the Tribune. “I checked out his story and it didn’t check out. It never happened. I never, ever talked to the DEA. They never stepped foot on my place.”

Miller, a Republican in his third-term in the state elected office, was registered to grow hemp in Texas between 2020 and 2023 — under a license granted by his own office. He was one of the hundreds of people who applied for that opportunity after state lawmakers legalized growing parts of the cannabis plant in 2019 as long as it did not contain more than .3% of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

Miller planted 10 hemp crops at his Stephenville tree nursery through 2022, including varieties called Sweet Wife, China Blossom and ACDC, records show.

State lawmakers in May voted to ban the sale of substances containing consumable THC in Texas citing concern that they are dangerous to people’s health. At first, Miller opposed that ban, arguing it would be harmful to Texas farmers, though he ultimately supported it.

Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed the ban in June, calling for a focus on regulation. Lawmakers returned to Austin on July 21 to once again tackle that issue, among others.

Scrutiny over hemp licenses  

When Hackney spoke to the Texas Ranger about Miller’s hemp business, the Ranger was investigating Miller’s close political consultant Todd Smith.

Smith was arrested in May 2021 for soliciting up to $150,000 to guarantee prospective growers supposedly exclusive hemp licenses from Miller’s office. Licenses to grow hemp are unlimited in Texas and cost $100. After the indictment, Miller told reporters that he parted ways with Smith following his arrest. He later said the investigation was politically motivated and that Smith did nothing wrong. Miller has denied involvement and was not implicated in the case.

Smith pled guilty to commercial bribery in 2024, a few weeks before his jury trial was scheduled to begin and about a week after Miller was subpoenaed to testify. Smith agreed to two years of deferred adjudication, meaning he would have to follow terms of probation but then could have his charges dismissed. A few months after Smith pleaded guilty, Miller hired Smith as chief of staff of the Texas Department of Agriculture. Smith did not respond to request for comment.

Hackney’s interview with the Texas Ranger, in which he described Miller asking him to get rid of the marijuana, is embedded in Smith’s 180-page investigative file from DPS.

“Sid shows up at my motor home and has three bags of product and by product, I mean, marijuana cigarettes that were in little cigar wrapping, gummies and so forth,” Hackney said in the interview.

Hackney responded, “What in the world is this?” he told the Ranger. But he did what Miller asked, he said.

Hackney’s motorhome had been parked on Miller’s property in Stephenville for about five years at the time to help manage his horse and cattle operation, he told the Ranger. Hackney, a former calf roper, got close to Miller traveling around the country and showing horses with him. He said two had a falling out in 2023 which resulted in Hackney moving off Miller’s property. Miller said he asked Hackney to leave his property because “he wore out his welcome.”

In the interview, Hackney told the Ranger he witnessed Miller tell an employee at his nursery to make sure if they had anything illegal on the property to get rid of it. And once at Miller’s house, he said he saw Miller smoke marijauna.

Miller said he told his employees to only grow legal hemp on the property.

Reached by the Tribune, Hackney said he stood by his statements to DPS, but stressed that he only came forward because he was asked by the Rangers to interview about Miller’s relationship to Smith. He was told by DPS that his statements would be confidential.

“I did not want to hurt Sid and especially his family in any way, but I did answer my questions to the best I could with the knowledge I had,” Hackney told the Tribune.

It’s unclear whether any investigators took any further action in response to Hackney’s claims. Asked about them, the DPS spokesperson initially said Hackney’s interview was included in a report that was submitted to the Travis County District Attorney’s office, and directed further questions to that office.

A spokesperson for the Travis County DA’s office said they do not have a record of receiving a copy of Hackney’s interview. Hours before publication, DPS sent an additional statement saying it did not send Hackney’s interview to the the district attorney’s office after it was determined that it “had no investigative value” to the Smith case.

A second investigation

Nearly a year after Hackney was interviewed by the Rangers, Vest, the employee fired by Miller after 10 years at the agency, got a knock on his door from two DPS agents asking to talk to him about his recent termination from the agriculture department.

In the interview, Vest said a former assistant commissioner, Walt Roberts, once told him that he accompanied Miller to a shop in Bastrop where Miller dropped off multiple garbage bags of his harvested hemp in exchange for two large garbage bags of black tubes with individually rolled joints inside.

“[Roberts] said [Miller] took his hemp down there, and what this guy was doing was spraying it with synthetic THC, turning it back into marijuana,” Vest told law enforcement.

Miller denied to Roberts he was doing anything illegal and remarked that “there’s some college kids that’d like to have this,” Vest told officers.

Roberts confirmed Vest’s account to the Tribune, adding that he felt uncomfortable being present for the exchange. He declined to answer further questions. Roberts was hired by Miller when he first took state office. Roberts has publicly disclosed he pleaded guilty for a federal felony and misdemeanor for his role in a campaign finance conspiracy in Oklahoma in 2003.

Miller denied he ever sold or exchanged his hemp in Bastrop.

Vest was interviewed after Miller reported him to DPS and accused him of threatening to expose intimate pictures involving Miller if he didn’t fire certain employees at the agency, according to a written request from Miller’s office for DPS to investigate the incident.

In a recording of that DPS interview, Vest told the officers Hackney had photos of Miller that could be incriminating.

The Tribune reviewed copies of both photos. One photo was of Miller laying next to a blonde woman on a bed smiling. Miller told the Tribune that it was a sick woman lying in a hospital bed who he took a selfie with. The other photo was a screen shot of what appeared to be Miller’s own Facebook story post of a woman naked on a bed, but only her backside is visible. Vest told police this woman was Miller’s wife. Miller told the Tribune he was unaware of this photo. Miller’s wife did not respond to a request for comment.

Vest told Miller about the photos in May, but didn’t tell him who had them, despite Miller’s repeated requests for more information, according to a recording of their conversation that Miller secretly recorded and sent to DPS.

When Miller fired Vest and reported him to DPS, he submitted his audio recording and a transcript of the conversation as evidence. The Tribune obtained copies via an open records request.

When Vest tells Miller about the photos, Miller asks where the photo came from and tries to guess who has copies of the photos, according to the recording shared with DPS.

In that recording of Miller and Vest’s conversation, Vest said that he had known about the photos for a while, but had previously convinced the person not to publicize them. But the person was more recently considering making them public and wanted Miller to fire Smith and another agency head.

Hackney told the Tribune that he never intended to release the photos.

Vest insisted in his DPS interview that neither he nor Hackney ever directly threatened Miller. He had tried, he said, to get Miller away from Smith for years.

“I didn’t show these [photos] to anyone to extort anything out of Sid or anything,” Vest told the officers. “And since I was terminated, I haven’t. It’s not a vendetta for me against Sid Miller.” Vest declined an interview with the Tribune.

The agents said in the interview with Vest that there was no evidence that Vest tried to blackmail Miller and closed the case. Vest was never charged with a crime. Miller told the Tribune he is still considering further legal action.

Political storms

Miller is gearing up to run for reelection for a fourth term next year. So far, he’s garnered at least one primary challenger: Nate Sheets, founder of Nature Nate’s Honey Company.

Miller previously served in the Texas state House from 2001 to 2013. Since he was first elected agriculture commissioner in 2014, he’s repeatedly weathered political controversies and criticism.

Miller has frequently faced backlash for posting misleading and false information on his political social media pages.

In 2016, Miller came under fire for using state funds to travel to Oklahoma to receive what he called a “Jesus shot,” an injection that a doctor in Oklahoma City claimed could take away all pain for life.

Miller later reimbursed the state for the trip and Travis County prosecutors did not pursue charges.

In 2017, the Texas Ethics Commission fined Miller $2,750 for sloppy campaign accounting. The next year, the ethics commission fined Miller $500 for using state funds to travel to a rodeo in Mississippi after an investigation found the primary purpose of the trip to Jackson was personal.

Kate McGee is continuing to report on issues related to the Texas Department of Agriculture. If you have a tip reach out at mcgee@texastribune.org.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/31/sid-miller-hemp-dea-texas-marijuana-gummies/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

The post Former Sid Miller allies told police the ag commissioner feared the DEA, told a friend to get rid of marijuana appeared first on feeds.texastribune.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a factual, investigative report on allegations involving Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller without adopting an overt ideological stance. It details accusations from multiple sources, Miller’s denials, and related investigations, maintaining a neutral tone throughout. The coverage includes balanced perspectives and official statements, focusing on documented events and law enforcement records rather than editorializing. While the subject is a Republican politician with a history of controversy, the article refrains from partisan framing and simply reports the facts, consistent with The Texas Tribune’s nonpartisan editorial approach.

SUMMARY: Glass panels have fallen multiple times from the under-construction 55-story ATX Tower in downtown Austin, raising safety concerns. On July 28, Ryan Companies found a broken glass panel—the fourth such incident this year—and alerted authorities, ensuring no injuries occurred. A covered walkway was installed as a safety measure. The City of Austin’s Development Services Department is working closely with the contractor, conducting site visits and investigations. While causes, including high winds, are being studied, no penalties have been imposed yet. Council member Zo Qadri demands accountability and potential city council action to ensure public safety amid ongoing risks.

Read the full article

The post Glass panels keep falling from downtown Austin building appeared first on www.kxan.com

“As the floods hit, Kerrville officials’ messages show lack of information about what was coming” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

The day before the Guadalupe River rose 34 feet in the small Hill Country city of Kerrville and swamped areas along the river banks, Mayor Joe Herring Jr. messaged the city manager with anticipation.

“Big day tomorrow at LHP,” Herring wrote, likely referring to Louise Hays Park, where a Fourth of July festival was planned with bands and fireworks.

“Yes it is!” City Manager Dalton Rice replied. “And it seems we got some rain too!”

A whole lot more rain was coming.

A review of emails and text messages sent to and between Kerrville city officials offers new details of what happened over the next 24 hours, showing how a city manager notified colleagues and council members that the river was rising. Some seemed to struggle to grasp the magnitude of the flash flooding that killed young girls sleeping in summer camp cabins upriver and sent a wall of water pushing along the Guadalupe River toward them.

As state lawmakers prepare to hold a hearing in Kerrville on Thursday morning about the floods, important questions remain about the local and state response to the horrific storm that ravaged small communities along the Guadalupe and left more than 100 people dead across Kerr County.

National Weather Service forecasters were pushing out warnings overnight as flooding intensified, leaving time for people to get out of harm’s way. But it has been unclear who, especially in leadership positions, saw those early messages and how they reacted. The scenario showed what experts say is a need for people to have multiple ways to get warnings and agencies to have multiple ways to put them out.

In the first state-level hearing on the floods last week, legislators heard that there is no mechanism for the state to be sure local leaders are awake and aware of how they need to be responding to a disaster, and there are no standard qualifications for emergency management coordinators who are working for cities and counties.

The emails and texts offer a window into the response in the city of Kerrville, but Kerr County has not yet released any communications among its top officials, who are responsible for emergency management across the county, including the hard-hit communities upriver from Kerrville where many of the county’s flood victims were swept away.

The city released its internal messages to ProPublica and the Texas Tribune in response to a request filed by the news organizations under the Texas Public Information Act.

Some comments from officials in text messages and a press release indicate that, at first, they were more focused on the flooding ruining the city’s Fourth of July celebration — a disconnect that emergency management expert Samantha Montano said highlights a common struggle for people to understand a disaster as it unfolds and underscores the need for strong local emergency managers.

The state’s relatively well-funded and well-regarded emergency management team in the past has obscured the lack of money and insufficient capability at the local level to respond effectively to a disaster, Montano said. But in this case, that chronic problem shone through.

“There was so much focus on the local government in this event, more so than a lot of other disasters because of the warning failures,” Montano said. “That has kind of stuck now.”

Rice, the city manager, noted in a text message: “Most of our team have not been through a disaster of this scale.”

A text from Kerrville’s mayor early July 4 shows that he was waiting to hear from the city manager about what specific actions he might need to take as the flood came up in the city, and an email to the city fire marshal indicates that all off-duty fire crew were called in well after the river rose.

Despite the initial confusion, Kerrville police were keeping an eye on flood-prone areas and low water crossings before the worst of the flooding struck. They closed those roads to traffic, then began evacuating structures first in harm’s way, Chief Chris McCall wrote in an email to The Texas Tribune.

And McCall did receive a warning that Kerr County pushed out at 5:02 a.m. about flooding in Hunt — a town some 13 miles upriver from Kerrville — on a system called Code Red, according to the city records. It’s not clear how many people received that message, which typically requires people to sign up for the alerts, or who authorized sending it.

That alert came nearly four hours after the National Weather Service issued its first flash flood warning in Kerr County.

Around that same time, 5 a.m., the gauge on the Guadalupe River in Kerrville shows the water started to rise quickly.

Thirty minutes later, texts among Kerrville officials began to fly.

Thursday July 3

Weather-related emails were landing in Kerrville Emergency Management Coordinator Jerremy Hughes’ inbox. He had just put in for retirement before the storm, Herring said. The daily National Weather Service “threat brief” shared by the state operations center predicted minor river flooding in southwest to southeast Texas, and a slight risk of flash flooding, according to the records. Nothing too scary.

Another state message informed Hughes that a flood watch had gone into place early that afternoon for Kerr and seven other counties, meaning meteorologists had identified conditions conducive for flooding. The email encouraged people to “have a plan of action in case a storm threatens.” Forecasters predicted one to three inches of rain, with as much as five to seven inches in some spots. The threat felt more specific.

Hughes received an updated report from the National Weather Service too, the copies of his emails show, reiterating the information. Again, meteorologists urged people in flood-prone areas to be prepared.

Kerrville Executive Director of Public Works and Engineering Stuart Barron passed a similar email around to other city staff.

Meanwhile, Fire Battalion Chief Jaran Floyd was getting organized, messaging a department group to ask for a head count in case they faced issues that weekend. People responded: A raised-hand emoji. Available. Available. Two hours away but available. And so on.

1:14 a.m. Friday July 4

Rain pounded overnight. In Kerr County, it would come down much heavier than meteorologists had predicted; more than 12 inches would fall over the south fork of the Guadalupe River between 7 a.m. July 3 and 7 a.m. July 4, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

The National Weather Service put out its first flood warning at 1:14 a.m. for Kerr County, which the agency said automatically triggered alerts to radios and cell phones if people had reception and didn’t disable them. That warning also got pushed through Code Red, according to the records.

Around 3 a.m., a gauge showed the river rising steeply in Hunt, where the south and north forks meet.

Hunt Volunteer Fire Department Chief Lee Pool woke that morning to voices on the radio he left on in his house, he said in an interview with the Tribune later in July. He heard the word “flood,” realized the river was rising and headed for the station in his Ford F-150. Around 4 a.m. the river in Hunt reached what is considered “major” flooding levels — and kept rising.

Pool reached a point where water ran over the road. He turned back, but was blocked again by floodwaters.

“That’s when I realized the magnitude of this,” he said.

Pool said he put in a request for a Code Red. A recording obtained by KXAN timestamped his call at 4:22 a.m.

The dispatcher responded, “We have to get that approved with our supervisor.”

Pool found a hill where he could wait it out. Hay bales floated by like corks. He watched a car come down the raging river with people inside. It was too dangerous to help.

The flood hadn’t yet hit Kerrville, 10 miles downstream.

At 4:58 a.m., someone texted Kerrville Police Chief Chris McCall, warning him the south fork of the Guadalupe had risen 29 feet.

“Holy smoke,” McCall replied.

Minutes later, at 5:02 a.m., according to the city records, Kerr County issued a Code Red: “IF YOU ARE IN THE HUNT AREA ALONG HIGHWAY 39 OR THE RIVER, EVACUATE THE AREA OR GET TO HIGHER GROUND.”

5:36 a.m. Friday July 4

Assistant City Manager Michael Hornes texted City Manager Rice and Assistant City Manager Kimberly Meismer about the rain pounding Hunt. In Kerrville, the water had risen to the base of the stage at Louise Hayes Park, Hornes said. The river was sweeping away the portable toilets staged for the July 4 festivities.

“It’s rising quickly,” Rice wrote back. “I made some rounds early this morning.” (Rice had been out jogging earlier that morning, he would tell reporters.)

Eight minutes passed.

Rice texted the Kerrville City Council: “Good morning. Major flooding on Hwy 39 at Casa Bonita rd past Hunt. 2 water rescues and 2 people stuck on the roof. Hunt (Volunteer Fire Department) and (Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System) boat team on scene. We have 3 more TIFMAS teams headed to the area and we are on standby. More information coming in.”

“Water is rising out at Louis (sic) Hayes Park more to follow.”

“Thanks for the news,” Council Member Kent McKinney wrote. “We get too little or, at times, too much rain at once.”

“Ugh!!!” wrote Council Member Brenda Hughes. “Not what we needed today.”

At 6:15 a.m.: Rice texted a group of 15 people, including city department heads, to tell them they were activating a command post, and that the park was under water.

“Please notify your on call and emergency teams and stand by,” he said, adding, “situation is developing rapidly.”

The city posted a statement to Facebook soon after that still reflected a lack of understanding of the flood’s size and scope.“Much needed rain swept through Kerrville overnight, but the downside is the severe weather may impact many of today’s scheduled July 4th events,” read the post, which was also issued as a news release. “Citizens are encouraged to exercise caution when driving and avoid low water crossings. Kerrville Police and Fire Department personnel are currently assessing emergency needs.”

Sometime after 6:37 a.m. Herring, the mayor, wrote to the city manager, “I stand ready to do my duty as needed.”

Seven minutes later, according to federal gauge data, the Guadalupe River at Kerrville reached its peak.

The aftermath

Kerrville was not the hardest-hit place during the July 4 flooding, but it didn’t escape unscathed either. Officials reported multiple rescues and evacuations, according to the records. The Walmart became a reunification point. The First United Methodist Church became a shelter.

Awful things happened: A park employee found a child’s body, according to one email. The city attorney, working to get a disaster declaration filed so the city could get federal funding, learned a friend had died in the flood.

As the extent of the disaster became clear, city leaders got bombarded with interview requests from television stations, messages from volunteers trying to find out how to help and solicitations from businesses trying to sell their disaster response services.

Some people sent messages of support; others eviscerated them. One person wondered why police officers didn’t see the river rising. “What happened here?” Another wrote to the city emergency management coordinator Hughes: “RESIGN.”

Council Member Jeff Harris described at a July 8 council meeting going out to a city where he had lived for 20 years and not recognizing it.

Assistant City Manager Michael Hornes told the council at that meeting about the destruction: The water treatment plant was damaged; eight cabins, 10 RV sites and other tent sites at Kerrville-Schreiner Park had to be evacuated as the parkland went under water; an RV hit an apartment building and pushed it off its foundation.

The city decided to turn soccer fields into a place to collect millions of cubic yards of tree and vegetative debris, Hornes said.

Herring, the mayor, said in an email to The Texas Tribune that the city on Thursday would provide the Legislative committees “a complete timeline of the city’s response.”

“I believe this timeline will dispel notions of a delayed response at the city level,” Herring wrote. “This timeline, in my opinion, shows city staff following our emergency plan well — especially given we had no accurate warning of what was unfolding in real time.”

County officials, meanwhile, have declined interviews and instead leaned on a statement from Rice: “From the start, the city and county have pledged transparency and a full review of the disaster response, and we stand by those commitments.”

No details about that review have been publicly released.

Lexi Churchill contributed reporting.

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The lineup for The Texas Tribune Festival continues to grow! Be there when all-star leaders, innovators and newsmakers take the stage in downtown Austin, Nov. 13–15. The newest additions include comedian, actor and writer John Mulaney; Dallas mayor Eric Johnson; U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota; New York Media Editor-at-Large Kara Swisher; and U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso. Get your tickets today!

TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/30/texas-kerrville-hill-country-floods-response-emails/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

The post Released messages show Kerrville officials’ flood response appeared first on feeds.texastribune.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article presents a factual, detailed account of the flood events and emergency response in Kerrville, Texas, without promoting a particular political viewpoint. It emphasizes transparency, government accountability, and public safety concerns through objective reporting of communications and official actions. The tone remains neutral, avoiding partisan language or framing, focusing instead on the events and systemic challenges in emergency management. The inclusion of multiple perspectives and official statements supports balanced coverage typical of centrist journalism.