Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) is suing a super PAC that supports Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) for libel over when he was allegedly arrested for drug possession in 1977.
Stockman is running a primary challenge against Cornyn.
At the center of the lawsuit is a question over whether Stockman was arrested in 1977 for possessing Valium. A mugshot of Stockman’s arrest has resurfaced calling into question the Texas congressman’s charge that the suggestions in his libel lawsuit against Texans for a Conservative Majority. The super PAC has created a website and run television ads questioning Stockman’s arrest record and his character.
Stockman, in the libel lawsuit, argues that the super PAC makes false assertions that he was “charged with a felony” according to the Texas Tribune. The mugshot suggests otherwise.
What’s more, Stockman has given conflicting statements on his arrest record. In late January of 2014 Stockman also said that any suggestion that he had broken the law or spent time in jail was false. But, as The Dallas Morning News notes, in 1995 Stockman said that he had spent a weekend in jail after his girlfriend put Valium pills into his underwear.
A Stockman spokesman later reached out to the Morning News to say that Stockman “never denied being arrested 40 years ago as a teenager. He was arrested for a traffic violation, not drugs. And he was not arrested multiple times or convicted of a felony.”
The Tribune also notes that a man named Stephen Ernest Stockman (the same as the congressman’s) who happened to have the same birthday as the congressman was arrested and charged in Michigan in 1977 for possessing Valium, according to legal records.
