Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott opted to attend a fundraiser for his re-election campaign rather than head over to Uvalde, Texas on May 24, after 19 children and two teachers had been slaughtered at Robb Elementary.
Abbott later told reporters that he went to the fundraiser but only stayed to tell supporters about the mass shooting and to “let people know” he was unable to stay, but reports show the embattled Texas GOP governor was at the Huntsville fundraiser for nearly three hours.
“The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday that campaign finance reports and flight-tracking records show that Abbott arrived in Huntsville at 4:52 p.m. on May 24 — hours after the shooting at Robb Elementary School — and then was driven about 2 miles (3 kilometers) to a local supporter’s house. He didn’t leave the city till 7:47 p.m,” The Associated Press reports.
The shooter was killed at 12:50 PM.
Abbott is believed too have raised as much as $50,000 at the fundraiser.
“On the way back to Austin, I stopped and let people know that I could not stay, that I needed to go,” Abbott told reporters the following day at a news conference. “And I wanted them to know what happened and get back to Austin so that I could continue my collaboration with Texas law enforcement to make sure that all the needs were being met here in the Uvalde area.”
Abbott has also come under fire for not attending any of the funerals of the 21 victims of the massacre.
In the days after the shooting Abbott praised law enforcement’s actions, only later to claim he had been “misled.”
“I am livid about what happened,” Abbott said, blaming others for his “recitation of what people in that room told me.”
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He claimed “the information that I was given turned out in part to be inaccurate.”