Bo French Wanted Public Executions. Now He Wants a Texas Statewide Office.

Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas railroad commissioner, repeatedly called for public executions in older social media posts uncovered by CNN's September 28 KFile investigation. One February 18, 2025 post, responding to discussion of DOGE, put the demand plainly:

CNN also documented May 2020 posts invoking death for people French called Obama conspirators, including a reference to a former president. The reporting describes a pattern across several posts, not a single word detached from an otherwise ordinary policy discussion.

These are not tweets French wrote on September 28. That is the date of the investigation. The newer set dates to February 2025; the Obama-related set to May 2020. A current candidate's older statements remain relevant, but they should not acquire a new timestamp just because somebody finally assembled the record.

There is an authentication point here, too. CNN says archived records connect French's earlier and current account handles through the same numeric user ID. The outlet could not establish whether he deleted the newer posts himself or whether the platform removed them. Disappeared is a description. A claim about who removed them would need more evidence.

I am considerably less interested in who clicked delete than in why a candidate thought executions belonged in this conversation. Demanding criminal accountability is one thing. Announcing a preference for public killing before establishing a case against the people in question is a rather different ambition.

French did not respond to CNN's inquiries for that investigation. That is the response record as of the report, not a claim that he has remained silent about every question asked since. His words still require an answer more substantial than an argument about how old the screenshots are.

We have already covered French's treatment of South Asian students at a University of Texas football game. The execution posts are a separate disclosure. They concern political violence; the student post concerns racial exclusion. Neither should be stretched into evidence for a claim the other does not prove.

The office matters. French is seeking a seat on the three-member Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas rather than railroads. Winning would not make him the sole head of the agency. It would give him a vote in an institution with substantial authority over the state.

A regulator needs to distinguish an allegation from a finding. So does anyone entrusted with public power. That makes French's enthusiasm for executing political enemies a question about judgment, not a distraction from the job he wants.

Readers of our Cruz rally account will recognize the need to record violent language precisely. Here the demand came from the candidate himself. Texas voters are not being asked to investigate a rumor about his temperament. They can read the words.