Tarrant County judge calls Democrats’ request to feds over voting ‘baseless’ and ‘pathetic’

Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare called a letter from Democrats urging the Justice Department to investigate Republicans over concerns their actions will diminish voting rights “baseless” and “pathetic.”

O’Hare issued his response in a letter he posted Tuesday afternoon on Twitter. Earlier in the day, he discussed it on the “The Mark Davis Show” on KSKY-AM.

In a letter on Monday, elected officials who represent Tarrant County’s minority communities asked the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to investigate O’Hare and other county officials over concerns that their actions will diminish voting rights.

The letter, signed by Democratic U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth and six other Democrats, cited the recent resignation of Elections Administrator Heider Garcia and the creation of an election integrity task force.

As a lawyer, O’Hare told Davis he wanted to go line by line through the letter. He said he had not diminished voting rights, that there was no pattern of voter intimidation or harassment in Tarrant County and that there was transparency in creating the election integrity task force through a press conference, which was held the day after the task force was announced.

“At the end of the day, this is what Democrats do,” O’Hare said in regard to Democrats trying to get the federal government involved. He continued, “They literally can’t point to a single thing that we’ve ever done to suppress the vote in Tarrant County.”

O’Hare told Davis that when something is “so dumb it isn’t worthy of a response,” not responding is the route he takes. He said Tarrant County will have its election integrity task force, hire a new elections administrator, do everything it can to ensure election confidence and not suppress voters.

“Who is exactly is being suppressed?” O’Hare asked. “The people that want to cheat?”

Davis said O’Hare might need to “ramp something up” with Veasey wanting the Justice Department to think O’Hare is a racist.

O’Hare called it “the old play.”

In a statement he posted on Twitter Tuesday afternoon, O’Hare said he learned about the letter through media. He did not respond to requests for comment from the Star-Telegram on Monday.

“It is a well-worn tactic of Democrats to pull the levers of power in government to bully and influence their political opponents,” O’Hare wrote. “I will not be deterred or intimidated by these attempts.”