Hidalgo on vaccine contract investigation: 'Let the process play out and the process will play out'

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo addressed the criminal investigation on Tuesday (March 22) into the $11 million COVID-19 vaccine outreach contract the county awarded and then cancelled last year, according to Houston-based media outlets. Houston CBS affiliate KHOU reported that Hidalgo, a Democrat, announced that the county won't terminate the three members of her staff who were implicated in the investigation. 

According to KHOU, Hidalgo spoke about the investigation during a break in yesterday's Harris County Commissioners Court meeting, saying the facts she has seen don't necessitate the senior aides' firings. The commissioners convened for the first time since the Texas Rangers executed search warrants at the county judge's office in Downtown Houston, Houston ABC affiliate KTRK reported.

“Eventually, all of the facts will be public, that’s why it’s important to let the process play out and the process will play out,” Hidalgo said, KHOU reported.

The Texas Rangers seized documents and electronics from the Harris County Administration Building on March 11, KHOU reported.

According to the state law-enforcement agency, the staffers' computers bore indications that the staffers allegedly tipped off a vendor about the job.

The search warrants stated that electronic correspondence involving Elevate Strategies, the firm that was awarded the contract, and its owner Felicity Pereyra, showed the county employees expressed a willingness to hold additional discussions with the former, KHOU reported.

Hidalgo decried what was publicly released, according to the station.

“Because it’s an ongoing investigation, I can’t address many of the misleading and sometimes false allegations that are swirling around,” the county judge said, KHOU reported. “A lot of what was released this past Friday was out of context, it was private messages, private emails, presenting a single side of what took place.”

KTRK reported that no criminal charges have been filed and Hidalgo remains standing with her staffers.

Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle was the lone dissenter on the contract last year.

Cagle told KTRK that he was shocked by what he read in the documents.

"The affidavits indicate that this was a case of bid-rigging is the phrase," the commissioner, one of the two Republicans on the commissioners court, said, according to the station. "That they worked in the very beginning to funnel this particular contract to this particular individual and because of that breach of trust they shouldn't be involved in any other contracts unless they're exonerated in the course of law."