State Ag employees told police they were wary of Sid Miller’s political consultant. Now he’s the agency’s chief of staff.

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Just 10 months ago, Todd Smith was preparing to stand trial, accused of soliciting exorbitant fees in exchange for state hemp licenses. Smith was a top political consultant for Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, whose office provided the licenses.

Less than a week after prosecutors subpoenaed Miller to testify in Smith's trial set for October, Smith pleaded guilty to commercial bribery and accepted a deal offered by prosecutors that will dismiss the charges after two years if he follows the terms of his probation.

“Mr. Smith looks forward to the completion of this matter and moving forward with his life,” his lawyers told reporters at the time.

While Smith moved forward, he didn’t move far.

Three months after his guilty plea, Miller hired Smith to be his chief of staff at the same state agency at the center of his case.

Miller, in his third term in state office, had never employed a chief of staff before Smith. The new job came with an annual salary of $218,582, making Smith the second-highest paid employee in the department of nearly 700 people — earning more than Miller himself.

Newly surfaced interviews and police reports from the Texas Department of Public Safety’s investigation into Smith shed fresh light on Smith’s relationship with Miller. Employees at the agriculture department told state police they were concerned about Smith’s presence at the agency, the hiring of Smith’s family members to agency positions, and his influence on their boss.

“Todd was always trying to come up with some scheme, somehow, to build a facade around Sid, and around the office, to glean money off everything,” Walt Roberts, a former deputy commissioner, told the Texas Rangers when interviewed for the investigation into Smith in 2021, according to a recording of the interview obtained by The Texas Tribune through an open records request.

“There's been a whole host of us who have sat Sid down several times and said, ‘Sid, you've got to do something about him. … You got to stay away from him. He's going to get you in trouble,’” Roberts told the Ranger. “[Miller] never listened to any of that.”

Roberts also told DPS he made a point not to attend any meetings about hemp if Smith was involved, according to the audio recording. Roberts, who worked at the agency for 10 years and retired earlier this year, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Jim Reaves, another former agency employee who recently died, told the Rangers in 2020 that he was advised by his supervisor not to take private meetings with Smith, according to the Ranger’s report.

Concerns about Smith continued after he became Miller’s chief of staff in January. At least one employee shared his trepidation directly with Miller. Freddy Vest, a former agriculture department director for a decade, reported telling Miller in a one-on-one meeting in May that Smith was wreaking havoc across the agency.

“It’s in turmoil right now from the field operation to the floor down to biosecurity,” Vest told Miller, according to a recording of their conversation that Miller made and provided to DPS. “They are all scared to death. They don’t know what’s going on.” Vest declined to comment further to the Tribune.

Shortly after that meeting, Miller fired Vest, accusing him of trying to pressure him into firing Smith and reporting him to state police for trying to coerce a public official, according to a copy of his complaint to DPS obtained through the open records request. Vest denied the accusation. DPS investigated the claim but did not file charges and closed the case.

Smith did not respond to a request for comment. In an interview, Miller said Smith has always had his fingerprints on the department.

"He's a long-time confidante, friend, adviser," Miller said. "I never ran anything through publication unless Todd's eyes were on it. So he's been a part of the deal. He's just never been paid. So that's why I hired him."

But he dismissed the concerns about Smith as lies from disgruntled former employees. He said Smith was "the best hire I've ever made," and praised his work at the agency over the last eight months. Miller said Smith has positively overhauled multiple departments, including communications and the agency's Go Texan advertising campaign supporting Texas-made products.

Miller told the Rangers in 2021 that agency employees were “jealous” of Smith’s close relationship with Miller. Miller acknowledged to the Tribune that employees often grew frustrated because he always asked for Smith's advice when sending agency communications, but defended Smith's involvement because his agency employees "were not political animals."

"They didn't understand that this is an elected office. It's not a bureaucracy," Miller said. "This [agency] is ended up by an elected official. And you have to consider the political aspects of it, too. So, yeah, they really resented Todd having that much power over their work."

During Miller’s interview with DPS about Smith, a Texas Ranger told Miller that “not one person had anything good to say about Todd Smith during the course of this investigation,” and that agency employees interviewed as part of the investigation were “distancing themselves as not to be around him,” the report states.

When the Rangers asked whether Miller allowed Smith to solicit money from people in exchange for a hemp license, he told the Rangers, “of course not,” according to the investigation report.

“That would be illegal,” Miller told the Ranger. “I would never do that.”

Miller was never charged or implicated in the bribery case.

Who is Todd Smith?

Miller first hired Smith 25 years ago as a political consultant during his first race for the Texas House of Representatives in 2000. Smith has also worked as a lobbyist in Texas for dozens of clients across the country since 2003, including the American Cancer Society, multiple home healthcare companies, political action committees like Texans for Traditional Marriage, and Texas-based farmers like L&L Farms and Green Gro Farm Texas.

Miller and Smith have also been business partners, documents filed with the Secretary of State’s office show. They were both listed as officers at a now-defunct company, PeerProf LLC, which was incorporated in 2010 and allowed college students to rate their professors online, and a political phone bank company called E Communication Advantage, which started in 2008, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

In early 2020, the Texas Rangers started investigating a series of complaints that Smith and another man, Keenan Williams, were allegedly soliciting large sums of money from people interested in investing in the burgeoning hemp industry in Texas, promising that the payments would get them to the front of the line for one of the exclusive hemp licenses that Miller’s agriculture department would issue.

Witnesses told state police that they gave money to Williams and Smith, who characterized the payments as consulting fees, political donations, or funding for surveys of Texans’ perception of hemp legalization — surveys that were never conducted, according to Smith’s arrest affidavit.

In exchange, witnesses said they were told they would receive a hemp license. In reality, hemp licenses cost $100 each, and the state could grant an unlimited number of them. Miller himself applied for a hemp license in 2020 and grew hemp for a few years.

Smith was accused of soliciting $55,000 in the scheme from individuals, a third-degree felony that carries a potential sentence of two to 10 years and a fine of up to $10,000. He pleaded guilty to commercial bribery, a state jail felony with a maximum sentence of two years in jail, and was given deferred adjudication, a form of probation.

Last month, the Tribune reported that former allies of Miller’s told state police officers that Miller feared a possible investigation into his hemp farm by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, and asked his friend to dispose of marijuana cigarettes and gummies for him in case DEA agents showed up at his house. Miller has denied the claims.

Miller told the Texas Rangers in 2021 that he paid Smith $2,000 per month for consulting, plus Smith received a 10% commission for any money he raised for Miller’s political campaigns.

Miller confirmed to the Tribune that this was his practice.

"If he went out on his own, then raised $10,000, I got him a check for $1,000, glad to do it," Miller said.

Hiring paperwork shows that Smith is still working as Miller’s political consultant while also acting as chief of staff. State law says that’s legal as long as employees do not conduct any campaign work on state time or with state equipment.

When Smith was hired, Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Terry Keel wrote on Smith’s hiring documents that he did not believe Smith’s work as a political consultant would influence his decision-making as the commissioner’s chief of staff or create a conflict of interest for the agency.

Miller said Smith "does not cross any lines," and said he only works on his political campaign on nights and weekends.

Smith’s son and ex-wife hired at agriculture department

Smith is the third member of his family to draw a salary from the agriculture department since Miller was first elected commissioner in 2014.

In May 2019, the agency hired Smith’s son, Jacob Smith, employees told Texas Rangers as they investigated Smith’s relationship to the agency.

Ken Weidenfeller, a former regional director at the Department of Agriculture, told the Rangers in 2020 that he was directed by Vest and Roberts to hire Jacob Smith as a field inspector in the agency’s San Antonio office. Weidenfeller said he was never told why, “but assumed it was linked to Todd Smith,” the Ranger’s report states.

Weidenfeller told the Ranger that he “did not think Jacob Smith was qualified” for the job. Weidenfeller did not respond to requests for comment.

Vest denied to the Rangers that he directed Weidenfeller to hire Jacob Smith, saying he only “encouraged” him to do so.

Miller and Todd Smith confirmed in their respective interviews with the Rangers that Jacob Smith was hired to work for the agency. Miller told investigators he never instructed anyone at the agency to hire Jacob Smith and would never hire someone unqualified for a position. But the report said Miller also told them that he may have told staff to find a job for Jacob Smith at the agency, and that “someone interpreted his comments as direction to hire Jacob Smith.”

Miller told investigators that the agency is always short-staffed and he would help anyone trying to find a job, not just Todd Smith’s son. Miller told the Tribune that Jacob wanted to work at the agency, and Miller told him he needed to apply like anyone else. He said he believed he was qualified for the position.

Smith told the Ranger that he told Miller and Roberts that his son was applying for a job, according to the Ranger’s report, but the Ranger wrote that Smith was noncommittal on whether he helped Jacob Smith get a job at the agency. Todd Smith said his son resigned from the agency after supervisors attempted to reassign him. Vest told the Rangers that Jacob Smith was let go after six months.

The Tribune could not identify contact information for Jacob Smith, but issued a request for comment through his father. Jacob Smith did not respond to that request.

Todd Smith’s former wife, Kellie Housewright-Smith, also worked at the Department of Agriculture for a few months when Miller was first elected to the position in 2014. She started as part of Miller’s transition team and then as an assistant commissioner in early 2015 with a $180,000 salary.

At the time, Smith told the Austin American-Statesman that his wife was hired because of her experience as a health care consultant to former members of Congress. She was put on probation for chronic absenteeism and quit just a few months after being hired because she said she wanted to spend more time with her son, who had medical needs, Smith told the Tribune at the time.

Roberts, the former assistant commissioner, told a Ranger during the investigation that Miller told him he needed to hire Smith’s wife because “he owed Todd Smith a bunch of money on consulting fees,” according to the Ranger’s report.

Miller denied Roberts' allegation. He defended his decision to hire Smith’s wife as an assistant commissioner, saying he felt she was qualified for the position.

"It's a pretty common practice to help, hire people that have helped you and are loyal to you," Miller said. "It's not just me, it's common for elected officials to appoint former colleagues, campaign workers or political advisors, you know, positioned in the administration."

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