Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo Takes Leave of Absence to Enter Treatment for Depression

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo announced that she is temporarily stepping away from her elected position and has checked herself into an inpatient facility where she will be receiving treatment for clinical depression. Marking Hidalgo’s third leave of absence in less than a year, starting last October when she took leave for what she said was recuperation from food poisoning and dehydration. In January 2023, Hidalgo took personal leave to visit her “ailing grandfather” in Columbia which turned out to also be a trip in which Hidalgo had taken to Thailand.

The Office of Judge Lina Hidalgo released a statement on Twitter/X, stating that she had been attempting to cope with this challenge that remained undiagnosed until last month.

In late July, Hidalgo stated that she checked herself into the facility.

It’s peculiar that she’s been allowed to continue to Tweet from her account like business as usual from a treatment facility.

Hidalgo is expected to resume her regular schedule by early September.

See below for her statement.

Some constituents are curious to see if this “leave of absence” is similar to Hidalgo’s 4-week leave of absence in Jan 2023, under the guise of visiting her sick grandfather. During that trip, a tornado hit Houston, forcing Hidalgo@/ to admit that the county Executive had also taken a vacation to Thailand. Prior, Hidalgo’s office had omitted from informing the public about the vacation to Thailand. The statement only came after it had been exposed Hidalgo had lost her official phone in Thailand.

Most found it precarious that Hidalgo’s office would omit the Judges travels to the public.

I guess when you have allegedly paricipated in treason, laundering hundreds of millions of federal funds, and spearheaded criminal reform resulting in murders of 100s of innocents it begins to weigh on ones soul.