Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton is facing an impeachment vote in the Texas House following an investigation into his actions. Paxton is accused of protecting a political donor and engaging in illegal acts, along with other accusations. The House General Investigating Committee has adopted 20 articles of impeachment against him.
The Austin real estate investor Nate Paul made a $25,000 contribution to Paxton’s campaign, and he was being investigated by the FBI. The investigators alleged that Paxton tried to use his office to intervene, forced his staff to change a ruling on COVID-19 restrictions to benefit Paul, and hired an outside attorney to serve as a special prosecutor and fight federal law enforcement on behalf of Paul.
The House investigation stems from Paxton’s office asking the Texas Legislature for $3.3 million that would go to four of his former employees who were fired in 2020 after making accusations about Paxton’s alleged misdeeds related to Nate Paul. Republican Rep. Andrew Murr, the chairman of the House General Investigating Committee, wrote in a memo sent to House members that “we cannot over-emphasize the fact that, but for Paxton’s own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment by the House.”
Democratic State Rep. Terry Canales told The Texas Newsroom that there is enough evidence to impeach Paxton, “after hearing the amount of evidence that they heard that we’d be derelict in our duty to not do it,” he said.
However, Paxton denies the allegations and called the impeachment proceedings politically motivated. He called on his supporters to peacefully gather at the Capitol building in Austin Saturday to let their voices be heard.
Paxton was first elected to the office of Texas attorney general in 2014 and has been reelected twice since then. He is popular with Republican voters, while remaining controversial inside and outside of the Republican Party. He’s made a name for himself within the state by prosecuting a record number of Texans with voter fraud and for his legal opinion defining gender-affirming care as child abuse. His reputation nationally has primarily come from his feuds with the federal government, both the Obama and Biden administrations over, for example, immigration, federal spending, and abortion medication. He also tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Shortly after first taking office in 2015, Paxton was indicted on securities fraud and has yet to face trial. He’s also facing a federal investigation over alleged abuse of his office.
Paxton doubled down calling the impeachment vote “illegal,” something his chief of litigation, Chris Hilton, told reporters Thursday. But Texas law only says that public officials cannot be impeached “for acts committed before election to office,” and is not specific about which election.
In a statement published on his Twitter account Thursday, Paxton said the Texas House was trying to “overturn” the results of his 2022 reelection. He also said that the impeachment vote was an attempt to derail his efforts to stop President Biden’s policies in court.
“The House is poised to do exactly what Joe Biden has been hoping to accomplish since his first day in office – sabotage our work, my work, as Attorney General of Texas. There is no other state in this country with so much influence over the fate of our nation, and this is solely because of the relentless challenges that I bring against Biden’s unconstitutional policy agenda,” he said.
The impeachment vote has caused controversy not just among politicians, but also among political analysts and voters. It remains to be seen what the outcome of the vote will be and what impact it will have both on the Republican Party and on the state of Texas as a whole.
Credit: npr.org
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