An attorney for former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says the onetime Republican presidential candidate is pleased that criminal charges against him have been finally dismissed.
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Attorney Tony Buzbee said Wednesday he spoke with Perry shortly after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out the last of two indictments against the longest-serving governor in state history. Perry was indicted in 2014, before leaving office.
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Buzbee calls it a "shame that it took that long to get something as weak and misguided as this to be dismissed." Perry was indicted for threatening - and then carrying out - a 2013 veto of state funding for public corruption prosecutors after the Democratic head of the unit refused to resign.
An abuse-of-power charge was the only indictment remaining, but the court ruled that the prosecution of a veto "violates separations of powers." A lower appeals court dismissed a coercion charge in July.
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The 6-2 ruling Wednesday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals likely ends the criminal case that Perry has partly blamed for sinking his short-lived 2016 presidential run.
Perry has been campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz since abandoning his own bid.
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