September 29, 2014 2:32 PM

Updated: Davis calls for independent investigation of Abbott's role in Enterprise Fund scandal

Senator says AG should return campaign cash that came to him from TEF recipients; AG's office says this is "political posturing—or just ignoring the facts."

Following revelations that Attorney General Greg Abbott received more than $1 million in campaign donations from companies that benefitted from lax oversight of the Texas Enterprise Fund, Sen. Wendy Davis on Monday called for his office to be investigated. Abbott should give that money back to those donors while such an investigation is completed, Davis said.

An independent audit of the $500 million business-luring fund released late last week showed that $222 million was awarded to companies and universities that never even applied for the money meant to create jobs across the state. Because of that, those dollars did not come with the requirement that the money be used for job creation, which is the why The Legislature approved the program administered by Gov. Perry’s office in the first place.

The blistering audit was the result of legislation passed at Sen. Davis’ behest last year.

The Dallas Morning News reported over the weekend that Abbott got more than $1 million in campaign cash from some of those firms and that he kept applications from companies secret by ruling that “the applications for money from the $500 million job-creation fund might contain confidential corporate information.”

Davis on Monday said that an independent state or federal investigation of the AG’s office should be immediately started and that Abbott should surrender any campaign cash gained from those companies – at least until such an investigation is complete. She also said Abbott’s office should immediately make public any documentation related to what she called his role in this “cover-up.”

By Scott Braddock