Greg Abbott, or better said Gregory Wayne “Greg” Abbott, became the Texas Attorney General back in 2002. He actually is the second Republican since Reconstruction to serve in this role.

Greg Abbott was born in November 13, 1957, in Wichita Falls, Texas. However, the general attorney was raised in Duncanville. He earned his BBA in finance in 1981, at the University of Texas. Only three years later Greg Abbott also earned his degree in law, this time at the Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, Tennessee. Abbott began his political career in Houston, where he first served as a state trial judge, position he occupied for no less than 3 years.

Source

In 1996, Greg Abbott was appointed by George W. Bush for the Texas Supreme Court. Abbott was twice elected to the state’s highest civil court, in 1996 and 1998. Thanks to his amazing work and commitment, Greg Abbott always received appreciation. He received several awards, including the Jurist of the Year, Trial Judge of the Year and Appellate Judge of the Year.

In 2001, Greg Abbott decided to go back to private practice. However, this did not last for long. The next year Abbott began seeking the open attorney general’s position. In 2002 this position remained vacant and Abbott ran for it against Democratic nominee, Kirk Watson. He managed to defeat Watson with 57% to 41%.

Source

In 2005, Greg Abbott, now the Texas General Attorney, decided to sue Sony BMG. In fact, Texas was the first state in the US to sue the company for illegal spyware. Numerous famous similar actions have brought Greg Abbott a lot of recognition. There is no wonder after all that Greg Abbott was re-elected in 2006. Back then, Abbott competed against David Van Os. He won re-election to a second term with 60% to 37%.

And that is not all. In 2010, Greg Abbott ran for an unprecedented third term. His re-election for the third time was quite surprising, as now Greg Abbott is the longest-serving Texas Attorney General in the history of the state of Texas. In fact, his victory against Barbara Ann Radnofsky was spectacular. Greg Abbott won with 64% to 34%.

Source

There is no doubt in the fact that Greg Abbott has had a very successful career as Texas Attorney General. He managed to remain popular throughout the years and it is rumored that Abbott will be a possible candidate for Governor in 2014. We are about to see what will happen next in Greg Abbott’s career, but his success remains undeniable.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott,  the chief legal and law enforcement officer of the state of Texas, opened an investigation into Google’s business practices, focusing on the company’s alleged anti-competitive behavior and potential abuse of power.

Source

Even though Google promised to cooperate, the Texas Attorney General’s office claimed that the company refused to hand over a bunch of documents it has allegedly been withholding from the office. Therefore, Greg Abbott’s office filed a civil suit against Google. 

The lawsuit does not claim that Google is engaging in anti-competitive activity. It was only filed to demand the company to turn over documents relevant to the investigation. Abbot says Google has withheld about 14,500 documents. On several occasions, it has declined to hand them over on attorney-client privilege grounds. 

Source

That doctrine shields communications, verbally, in writing, or in some other form, from discovery by an opponent or another third party. This is a long and well established rule in criminal and civil law. The Texas Attorney General’s office argues Google has not met the requisite burden, showing these documents are protected against disclosure by the attorney-client privilege. 

The suit alleges that “Google has not met its burden of demonstrating that the privilege is applicable to many of the documents withheld“. In response, the company stated that “we have shared hundreds of thousands of documents with the Texas Attorney General, and we are happy to answer any questions that regulators have about our business“. 

Google’s refusal to hand over the documents led to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot seeking a court over that would require the company to surrender more of the requested material. The petition was filed in a Texas state court. 

Here is an excerpt of the petition filed by Abbot:

“This is an action to enforce two Civil Investigative Demands (“CIDs”) served on Google Inc. (“Google”) by the Antitrust Division (now the Antitrust Section) of the Texas Attorney General’s Office. While Google has produced a significant volume of documents in response to the CIDs, Google has withheld a large volume of documents based on assertion of the attorney-client privilege and has claimed that certain documents that were produced are, in fact, privileged, and should be destroyed or returned to Google. Google has not met its burden of demonstrating that the privilege is applicable to many of the documents in question. The Attorney General’s Office brings this action seeking a Court order compelling Google to produce all documents that are not subject to attorney-client privilege.”

Source

Patrick Lynch, the former Attorney General of Rhode Island, issued a statement saying that “Google has once again thumbed its nose at the Attorneys General and law enforcement agencies around the world who are seeking information to shed light on serious and credible allegations that Google is illegally abusing its monopoly power in ways that deprive customers of choice, harm innovators, and raises the cost for all organizations who use the Internet to reach new customers“. 

It remains to be seen whether Google will provide the required documents or not. If the company has nothing to hide, it will comply with Texas Attorney General’s request and will hand over information about its business practices.

2008 was the year when the first African-American president was elected, Barack Obama. In keeping with his historic campaign and election, Obama nominated Eric Holder to serve in his Cabinet as the United States attorney general. Holder’s career, like Obama’s, is full of a history of African-American firsts. Eric Holder was the first African-American to serve as the U.S. attorney for Washington D.C. and the first African-American to be deputy attorney general.

Source

As an attorney general, he is now the highest-ranking African-American person in law enforcement in the United States. Holder’s position in the government is obviously an important one. As attorney general, Holder guides the world’s largest law office and leads the agency responsible for enforcing federal laws.

The attorney general is the legal advisor to the government. On the federal level in the United States, the Office of the Attorney General heads the Department of Justice and is the chief law enforcement office in the federal government. Eric Holder is also responsible for legally representing the United States and advising the president and heads of executive departments when his opinion is needed.

The Responsibilities of the Attorney General

• As Head of the Department of Justice and Chief Legal Counsel to the president, the duties of the attorney general are important and wide-reaching. He prosecutes cases that involve the government and gives advice to the president.
• As Chief Officer of the Department of Justice he enforces federal laws, provides legal counsel in federal cases, interprets the laws that govern executive departments. Moreover, he may be called upon to represent the United States in the Supreme Court in cases of exceptional importance.
• The attorney general is in charge of supervising United States attorneys and marshals in their respective judicial districts.
• The attorney general and states attorney generals have the same duties as the federal attorney general but on a smaller statewide scale.

Eric Holden and the War on Terrorism

As Attorney General, Holder has been a defender of the President’s legal right to prosecute the War on Terror. In May of 2011, Holder testified before Congress on the legality of the operation where US special forces killed Osama bin Laden earlier that month.

He testified that the operation to kill Bin Laden was legal, stating that international law allows for targeting enemy commanders. In order to support this point, Holder said that computer evidence seized from the raid demonstrated that Bin Laden was still leading al-Qaeda.

Source

In April 2011, Holder announced that accused September 11 attack conspirators would be tried by military commissions. This decision was a reversal from Holder’s position in 2009, when he had previously stated that he would bring the suspects to NY for trial.

In May 2008, while still in private practice, Legal Times magazine named Eric Holder as one of the Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Past 30 Years, describing Holder as one of the Visionaries. Also in that year, Holder was named by the National Law Journal as one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America.

Gregory Wayne Abbott, also known as Greg Abbot is the longest-serving Texas Attorney General in Texas history. Abbot was born November 13, 1957 in Wichita  Falls and was raised in Duncaville, Dallas County.

Due to incredible results, he earned a BBA from the University of Texas in Austin and in 1984, Abbott earned his law degree from the Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville.

Unfortunately, when he was 26, he was injured by a falling oak tree and he has used a wheelchair since that event.

Today, he is the Texas Attorney General and was sworn in 2002. Before becoming the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott was a justice on the Texas Supreme Court and he is renowned for a 2005 United States Supreme Court case known as Van Orden v. Perry, when he successfully defended the right of Texas to display the Ten Commandments in front of the state Capitol.

Source

He started his judicial career by working for Butler and Binion and his political career began when he served as a state trial judge in the 129th District Court for three years. Later, he was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Bush and then he was elected to the state’s highest civil court, managing to defeat Davin Van Os and B. Hawley, which was a huge accomplishment.

Here, you will find out more about Abbott:

As a judge, Abbot was several times awarded, receiving “Trial Judge of the Year”, “Jurist of the Year” and “Appellate Judge of the Year” awards.

In 2001, he resigned from the Supreme Court, trying to become the Texas Attorney General. Abbot managed to defeat the Democratic nominee, Austin Kirk Watson, so his campaign was successful.

Source

His political career continued with general elections when he was challenged by David Van Os, but Abbott won re-election to a second term.

In 2010, Abbott ran for a third term election, which was an unprecedented event until then. Nonetheless, Abbott managed to defeat the Democratic attorney Barbara Ann Radnofsky of Houston and the Libertarian Jon Roland. There are rumours that in 2014, Greg Abbott will candidate for Governor in case Governor Rick Perry will not seek for a fourth term.

Source

Abbott is not only a popular politician, but also the best Republican fundraiser in Texas as in the first six months of 2011, he raised 1.6 million dollars, which was by far the highest amount of money that a Texas politician ever managed to raise.

Related to his personal life, he is married to a former school teacher and principal, Cecilia P. Abbott and they have a daughter who was born in 1997, named Audrey.

The Texas Attorney General is the most important position in the State of Texas in terms of legal situations and law enforcement. The current Texas Attorney General is Greg Abbott, who started acting in this position since December 2002. Many responsibilities, obligations and duties must be respected and met by the Texas Attorney General. Through these, the perfect functioning of the legal system in the state is insured in the parts that are featured here. The most important functions of the Texas Attorney General are stated in the Constitution, which obliges the person occupying this function to act in certain situations in various ways. The Texas Attorney General is the one to defend the laws and the Constitution of the State of Texas. He is the representative of the state in all legal issues and a decisional factor in the processes and events connected to it.

The representation of the state through the position of the Texas Attorney General is done in the case of litigations, public bond issues and so on. In order to fulfill all these obligations and necessities in the proper way, the Texas Attorney General must have the proper knowledge over all the domains of the state. Therefore, he must work with the boards and agencies of the state, various committees and commissions. The main obligation of the Texas Attorney General, in these cases, is to provide legal counseling for the members of these units when requested. For example, the governor of the state or a chief of a state agency may require legal information and advice in a matter connected to the state and to the affairs carried in the name of the state. The Texas Attorney General is also the head of its own office.

Responsibilities for the Texas Attorney General have been created in the idea that there needs to be a superior legislative office in every state to oversee the actions and processes to be taking place in these domains. Through the office of the Texas Attorney General, many law systems actions and issues are mended in the proper way, through specific and settled direction of the head of office.

How our Texas Attorney General Office stacks up against other Attorney General Offices is something only you can decide for yourself. However, know that one of the most important jobs held by this office is to protect all citizens of Texas and the entire legitimate business community. They do this by filing civil lawsuits under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act and any other consumer protection statues. Here’s some general information and insight into the way the Attorney General Office operates and what you can expect as a consumer.

From the beginning, the Texas Attorney General Office is solely responsible for protecting homeowners against residential mortgage fraud. A Residential Mortgage Fraud Task Force has been established in order to properly and effectively investigates and prosecutes anyone perpetrating mortgage fraud and residential mortgage fraud all across the state. When a consumer files a complaint with the agency, an investigation into the company’s business practices quickly ensues. As a matter of fact, if the office receives a great deal of complaints about a business, legal action may be taken to enforce state law.

The Texas Attorney General Office is not in the position to represent individual consumers. Lawsuits will be filed on behalf of the state of Texas in addition to the public good. There are some legal actions that bring about restitution for individual consumers. It’s best to educate yourself on the mission of the Attorney General’s Office. Protect yourself by staying on top of your rights and being mindful of common scams.