‘You stole them’: Accusations of lies, email theft hurled during Collin County meeting

A Collin County Commissioners Court meeting this week devolved into a shouting match between two elected officials involving accusations of records theft and lies.

The 30-minute back-and-forth began when District Clerk Lynne Finley asked the Commissioners Court to provide her a budget to operate an independent email server.

The server was necessary, she said, because there had been a breach of the processes that involve the release of public records.

Finley explained she regularly communicates with judges on sensitive matters, including issues involving juvenile court, and needs 10 days to review correspondence to determine whether material should be exempted from public disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act.

“While records are public records, there are a lot of legal reasons why certain documents cannot be released,” she said. “And we are sitting in a place right now where I am telling you, we’ve had a breach, and we need to fix it.”

When County Judge Chris Hill asked for more information, Finley explained that an elected official had circumvented the disclosure process and obtained hundreds of her emails through the county’s information technology department.

“Oh,” Hill said. “You mean me.”

“Yes, I do,” Finley responded. “You stole them.”

That accusation brought to the forefront disagreements between Finley and Hill that have been bubbling for more than 18 months, starting with a dispute over how Collin County handled magistrate and court functions.

Finley said Wednesday that she had no intention of publicly accusing Hill by name of stealing her emails.

“I’m a Republican, he’s a Republican,” she said. “I do not want to go out and attack other elected officials. That was not my intent.”

Finley said Hill submitted a request under the Public Information Act for emails that Finley sent containing several key words, including “magistration.” But before there was an opportunity to examine Finley’s emails for exemptions, Hill had a staff member go to the county’s IT department and take a thumb drive with her emails, she said.

Hill repeatedly denied stealing emails. Although he told Finley during the meeting that he “can’t wait for the articles” about their argument, he did not respond to several attempts to contact him for comment.

“You can stand up here and say they were stolen, but it is a lie,” Hill said. “It might’ve just been that you were confused, but now that you have been corrected, if you say it again, you’re deceitful. … Thus far, perhaps you just didn’t know, and so we’ll go ahead and grant you this one a mulligan.”

Hill said he requested the records in his official capacity as a county judge. Therefore, he said, he was not subject to the same disclosure rules that most members of the public are.

The pair then shifted to an argument about Finley’s decision not to come into the county offices during the height of the coronavirus pandemic last year.

Hill told Finley that he requested and received a report detailing where and when Finley used her access card to enter county buildings.

“That report demonstrated that during COVID-19, while your office was open to the public and working, you were not on campus for six entire months,” Hill said. “Not one time during that six months. … That frustrated me to no end.”

“It was COVID,” Finley said. “…There was a pandemic!”

She explained that she and other family members were at high risk of complications if they contracted COVID-19.

“I took care of myself, I took care of my kids, and I took care of my job, and that’s all I can do,” Finley told Hill. “… You wanted me to come to this court in October, before we even had a vaccine. You almost demanded I appear in person until you realized that I actually have a letter from my doctor who says you should not be in public. You wanted to force me to be here.”

Finley said Wednesday that she “won’t be bullied for doing my job.” She said that she has spoken with attorneys specializing in criminal law about her accusations against Hill but that she had not approached law enforcement.

Ultimately, she said, “I would like to do my job without Judge Hill’s interference.”