AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Secretary of State John B. Scott recently sat down with KVUE's Ashley Goudeau to talk about his appointment to the position, his goals and experience so far in the role of the state's chief election officer.
Scott was an attorney in Fort Worth prior to his appointment by Gov. Greg Abbott in late October.
"Honored, in just a simple word," he said about his appointment to the position.
The Fort Worth attorney also briefly represented former President Donald Trump in a lawsuit challenging the 2020 general election results in Pennsylvania. Scott later withdrew from the case, according to The Texas Tribune.
"They had an interesting case, set of facts, went up there and the law changed a little bit because of the Third Court of Appeals ... on an elector's clause decision, and so a lot of the ideas that might have been relevant were no longer that," Scott said about his brief stint representing Trump. "So there was kind of a change of, I guess goals, and I no longer really needed to be involved in the case."
Scott also spoke about his role in leading the full audit of the 2020 general election in four of the state's counties: Collin, Dallas, Harris and Tarrant. The Texas Secretary of State's Office launched the audit before Scott stepped into the role. He told Goudeau that his office was "not trying to go back" and change election results, but was instead like election processes "sitting through a test" to see if the processes in place were still functioning.
"And again, people need to understand, we're not trying to go back. There is no way to go back and change any election results," Scott said in part.
Scott previously served as deputy attorney general for civil litigation for Abbott when he served as the state attorney general. Scott oversaw all civil litigation, including over 22,000 lawsuits involving Texas, according to the governor's office. He was then appointed the first chief operating officer of the Health and Human Services Commission.
After returning to private practice, Abbott appointed him as the chair of the board for the Department of Information resources, where he developed the strategic plan for technology and security at Texas executive branch agencies and boards.
To watch the full responses on the ongoing election audit, his brief time representing the former president and other topics discussed in the 24-minute interview, check out the YouTube video here.
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: