News broke, including on this site, about Texas Governor Greg Abbott having took hush money from Donald Trump after the investigation into Trump U mysteriously ended. It turns out this was something of a Democrat fib, and the lie had gotten around the world before the truth even looked at its pants.

Story is bogus. A few journalists peddling their agenda rather than getting all the facts tank the profession. https://t.co/kT7aXiF6Rv

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) June 3, 2016

The story is that an investigation opened into Trump U by Abbott’s office, but was discontinued shortly before Abbott received $35,000 toward his gubernatorial campaign. Sans details, this looks really, really bad. Especially since the guy has been mopping up the Texas capitol with ethics reforms, which he detailed as an emergency measure.

It even looks a lot like the kind of $25,000 donation Florida’s AG, Pam Bondi, got a few months after she dropped her investigation into Trump U.

Naturally, the Democrats wanted to take advantage of this, and painted Abbott as a crony. As reported in the Austin American Statesman.

“Republican Governor Abbott is on the corrupt Trump payroll,” said Texas Democratic Party Deputy Executive Director Manny Garcia, citing an Associated Press story that suggested that Abbott dropped the probe and subsequently received Trump’s donations. “Now we really know why Trump University got a pass from a state investigation and why Trump is getting Abbott’s support for president.”

But the details tell a different story.

Abbott’s investigation took place in 2010, while the $25,000 and $10,000 campaign donations came in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Taylor Mallard at Hot Air puts it well here.

The timeline is really important here. The Bondi donation came a few months after the Trump U investigation ended, while the Abbott donations came three years after Trump U left Texas. Trump didn’t really start getting involved in national politics until 2011 (his first video actually suggested the U.S. get involved in Syria), even though he’d obviously considered presidential runs in 1988 and 2000. So the 2013 and 2014 donations to Abbott appear to more be along the lines of, “Oh, you’re a Republican running for office? Here, enjoy.”

It should also be noted that these donations occurred well after Abbott’s reelection for Texas Attorney General in 2010, the time the investigation was happening. This is pretty solid evidence that there was no bribery to speak of, seeing as how he received no money from Trump until 3 years later, and after Trump U was chased out of Texas no less. If Trump were to bribe Abbott, then it’s odd he wouldn’t donate to the campaign Abbott was running in 2010, at the time of the lawsuit.

On top of this, Abbott is the same man who endorsed Cruz over Trump, and supported him until Cruz dropped out. It’s highly unlikely that any under the table collusion was happening, seeing as how Abbott didn’t support the man from the get-go.

But the big piece of info rests with the fact that Abbott didn’t even cut the cord on the lawsuit, as it was revealed that Abbott’s Former Deputy Attorney General David Morales decided to discontinue the lawsuit without his boss’s input. As reported by The Dallas Morning News…

Morales said he did not discuss the matter with Abbott before deciding not to pursue a recommendation from agency staff to take legal action against Trump U and its namesake. He informed Abbott after the decision was made, he said.

“To be clear, I did not discuss this matter with General Abbott or Daniel Hodge [then-first assistant attorney general] … prior to making my decision,” Morales said. “Any suggestion otherwise is false.”

The lawsuit was quietly dropped, reports DMN, because Trump U ceased operations and left Texas when it legally got too hot, which was the primary goal of the lawsuit.

Funny what gets lost when the mainstream media spins a story.