Politics

Greg Abbott doesn’t buy BLM’s denial of Texas land grab: ‘Contradicts other statements’

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Brendan Bordelon Contributor
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Texas attorney general Greg Abbott rejected the Bureau of Land Management’s denial that they’re seeking to appropriate Texas state land along the Red River, noting it “contradicts other statements that the BLM is making.”

On Tuesday Abbott — who is also running as the Republican candidate for governor of Texas — sent a letter to the BLM that denounces their intent to claim 90,000 acres along the Red River, which demarcates the border between Texas and Oklahoma.

And on Wednesday the Texas AG joined Fox News’ Greta van Susteren to put more pressure on the land-grabbing federal agency.

“This is alarming and disturbing because private property owners in Texas have owned this land that abuts up against the Red River for generations,” Abbott told Susteren. “They have cultivated it and they have produced off of it.”

“And now seemingly out of the blue, the federal government is coming in and trying to seemingly stake a claim to what we think is private property owned by Texans,” he continued. “And so what we are doing is firing off this letter to the Bureau of Land Management to find out exactly what it is they are looking into because we feel that for one, at a minimum, they are overreaching, trying to grab land that belongs to Texans.”

“Or worse,” he added, “they are violating due process rights by just claiming that this land suddenly belongs to the federal government, swiping it away from our Texans.”

Susteren noted that the BLM posted a denial of land grab on their website, claiming that they’re not moving into take the land.

“Right,” Abbott said. “One hand is saying one thing, the other hand is saying the other thing, and we’re trying to figure out exactly what claims they are staking.”

“If they’re saying they’re not taking any Texas land, that’s fine,” he explained. “However, that does contradict other statements that the BLM is making.”

And if the BLM does move ahead with their claim on Texas land?

“We will be seeing them in court,” Abbott asserted. “Because this is land that belongs to Texans, and we’re going to be fighting for those Texans and their private property rights and the rule of law in a court of law. And we believe the courts will favor Texas in this fight.”

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