“Serious questions surround this about-face, including why our Attorney General, who once championed transparency, is suddenly now supporting secretive government practices,” Maurie Levin, an attorney for death row inmates, said in a statement.

In a reversal of his previous rulings, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on Thursday decided that the Texas prison system can keep secret from the public information about pharmacies that provide execution drugs.
The ruling cited an assessment by the state Department of Public Safety that determined drug suppliers could be subject to “real harm.
In an interview with The Texas Tribune, DPS Director Steve McCraw confirmed Thursday that his agency has investigated threats made to pharmacies about lethal drugs provided to the state prison system’s execution.
“We did review threats that were made to pharmacies,” McCraw said. “It did have to do with execution drugs and it was information provided to us and that we looked at.”
Abbott, in his ruling, said that the DPS “threat assessment” was the proof needed to keep private information about suppliers of lethal drugs used by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The ruling allowing secrecy is noteworthy because it was made in the midst of Abbott's campaign for Texas governor against Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis and because in three prior rulings, Abbott has ruled for transparency when it comes to execution information. Calls to Abbott's state office and his campaign office were not immediately returned Thursday.

In his ruling, Abbott wrote that based on the DPS assessment and his agency's review, "we find the department must withhold the identifying information of the pharmacy and pharmacist."
McCraw declined to say how many threats had been made to pharmacies, how many were investigated or whether they were credible.
“I’m not going to get into that discussion with you,” McCraw said.

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