Texas' GOP attorney general impeached by GOP-controlled House

Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton speaking into a microphone

By ACACIA CORONADO, JIM VERTUNO and JAKE BLEIBERG

Associated Press

May 27, 2023 Updated 4:01 PM PT

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas’ GOP-led House of Representatives impeached state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton on Saturday on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust — a sudden, historic rebuke of a fellow Republican who became a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and criminal allegations.

The vote triggers Paxton’s immediate suspension from office and empowers Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas’ acting top law enforcement official.

Whether Paxton is permanently removed will depend on the outcome of a trial in the state Senate. No trial date has been set.

The 121-23 vote to impeach him was an abrupt downfall for one of the GOP’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Biden’s electoral defeat of then-President Trump. Paxton is only the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

Moments after the vote, Paxton’s office said the impeachment was “based on totally false claims” and pointed to internal inquiries that found no wrongdoing. House investigators said his own office’s findings on his actions include false and disproven claims.

“No one person should be above the law, least not the top law enforcement officer of the state of Texas,” Rep. David Spiller, a Republican member of the committee that investigated Paxton, said in opening statements Saturday.

Rep. Ann Johnson, a Democratic member of the panel, told lawmakers that Texas’ “top cop is on the take.”

Rep. Charlie Geren, a GOP member, said without elaborating that Paxton had called lawmakers and threatened them with political “consequences.”

As the articles of impeachment against Paxton were laid out Saturday, some members of the House shook their heads.

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor, and he was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial.

Until last week, his fellow Republicans had taken a muted stance on allegations against him.

Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the inquiry, noting that hired investigators rather than members of the House panel had interviewed witnesses. They also said the probe was tainted because several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, and complained that there wasn’t enough time to review the evidence.

“I perceive it could be political weaponization,” said Rep. Tony Tinderholt, one of the House’s most conservative members. GOP Rep. John Smithee likened the proceeding to “a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching.”

Paxton’s permanent removal from office would require a two-thirds vote after his trial in the Senate, where is wife, Angela, is a member.

Texas’ top elected Republicans were notably quiet about Paxton for most of the week. But Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to his defense on Saturday.

Cruz called the impeachment process “a travesty” and said the attorney general’s legal troubles should
be left to the courts.

“Free Ken Paxton,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning House Republicans, “I will fight you” if they proceed with the process.

Abbott, who lauded Paxton in January while swearing him in for a third term, has remained silent, though he spoke at a Memorial Day service in the House chamber on Saturday, about three hours before the impeachment proceedings began.

GOP House Speaker Dade Phelan attended the service, but the two appeared to exchange few words, and Abbott did not speak to reporters.

In one sense, Paxton’s political peril seemed to arrive with dizzying speed: The House committee’s investigation came to light Tuesday, and by Thursday lawmakers had issued 20 articles of impeachment.

But to Paxton’s detractors, the rebuke was years overdue.

In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later he was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.

He started a legal defense fund that accepted $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by Paxton’s office on allegations of Medicaid fraud.

An additional $50,000 was donated by an Arizona retiree whose son Paxton later hired to a high-ranking job. The son was soon fired after he displayed child pornography in a meeting.

In 2020, Paxton intervened in a Colorado mountain community where a Texas donor and college classmate was facing removal from his lakeside home under COVID-19 pandemic orders.

But what ultimately unleashed the impeachment push was Paxton’s relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

In 2020, eight of Paxton’s top aides told the FBI they were concerned he may be misusing his office to help Paul with the developer’s unproven claims that an elaborate conspiracy was afoot to steal $200 million of his properties. The FBI has searched Paul’s home, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing.

Staff members say that Paxton also told them he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Paul.

The impeachment articles accused Paxton of attempting to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul. Its bribery charges alleged that, in exchange for the then-attorney general’s legal help, Paul employed the woman with whom Paxton had an affair, and paid for his expensive home renovations.

A senior lawyer for Paxton’s office, Chris Hilton, said Friday that the attorney general had paid for all of the home’s repairs and renovations.

Other charges, including lying to investigators, date back to Paxton’s still-pending securities fraud case.

Four of the aides who reported Paxton to the FBI later sued under Texas’ whistleblower law, and in February he agreed to settle the case for $3.3 million. The House investigative panel said last week that their probe was sparked by Paxton seeking the required legislative approval for that payout.

“But for [his] own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct,” the panel said, “Paxton would not be facing impeachment.”