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The Texas Senate on Saturday acquitted Attorney General Ken Paxton of 16 articles of impeachment alleging corruption and bribery, his most artful escape in a career spent courting controversy and skirting consequences of scandal.
No article received more than 14 of the required 21 votes to convict. Only two of 19 Republican Senators, Bob Nichols of Jacksonville and Kelly Hancock of North Richland Hills, voted in favor of convicting for any article — a stark contrast to the more than 70% of House Republicans who impeached the attorney general in May.
Paxton, known for his defiance, remained unyielding despite only attending two trial days and missing his own exoneration.
Paxton expressed his belief that the impeachment orchestrated by the Biden Administration, along with House Speaker Dade Phelan and his biased court, has inflicted financial burdens on taxpayers, hampered the Office of Attorney General’s operations, and cast an enduring shadow over the Texas House. In his statement, Paxton condemned the misuse of the impeachment process as a means to resolve political disputes, deeming it both unethical and corrupt.
The conclusion of a two-week trial was marked by dramatic votes. Throughout the trial, numerous witnesses, including ex-high-ranking officials who worked under Paxton, provided testimony. They stated that the attorney general had consistently misused his position by assisting his friend, Nate Paul, a troubled real estate investor in Austin. Paxton allegedly aided Paul in investigating and intimidating his adversaries, delaying the sale of his properties facing foreclosure, and obtaining confidential records pertaining to the police investigation against him. In exchange, House impeachment managers claimed that Paul financed the renovation of Paxton’s home in Austin and assisted him in conducting and concealing an extramarital affair with a former Senate aide.
In the end, senators were unpersuaded.
“This should have never happened,” Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, told reporters outside the chamber. He criticized what he called a rushed and flawed investigation by the House.
But acquittal was not a foregone conclusion during the eight hours of deliberation, Sen. Royce West said. The Democrat from Dallas said some Republicans supported conviction but switched their votes when it became clear it did not have the required two-thirds support.
Paxton’s return to office was promptly facilitated by the not guilty verdicts, which negated the automatic suspension imposed following the House’s impeachment vote in May. These votes effectively thwarted the House Republicans’ audacious plan, initiated discreetly in the spring, to investigate and subsequently remove one of their own party’s leaders.
After facing persistent pressure from grassroots groups, conservative activists, and the state Republican Party leader who promised reprisal at the polls if Paxton was found guilty, the senators finally took action.
Paxton’s wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, was on hand to witness his acquittal. Required to attend but barred from deliberating and voting because of her relationship with the accused, she listened stone-faced during the trial as multiple witnesses testified about the attorney general’s infidelity, exposing as a lie his 2018 declaration to his wife and senior aides that the affair was permanently over.
Following the acquittal, she embraced Tony Buzbee, her husband’s primary attorney, and exchanged handshakes with the defense team.
In the Senate chamber, where silence predominated, the voting extended beyond an hour. The persistent chirping of crickets, recently infesting the Capitol, was the only audible sound. The House impeachment managers, wearing glum expressions, observed with a sense of helplessness as each meticulously prepared article was declined, with one even facing a resounding rejection by a margin of 28-2.
Rep. Jeff Leach of Plano, who risked his standing in the Republican Party by delivering an impassioned speech urging conviction on Friday, sat with his hands clasped in front of his face.
In addition, the Senate decided by a vote of 19-11 to reject the remaining four articles of impeachment that were previously set aside before the trial. These articles specifically addressed Paxton’s ongoing securities fraud case, which is anticipated to commence in the early months of next year.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, once his role as impartial judge was fulfilled, ripped into the House and its leadership for filing the case in the first place, which he said wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. He blasted the lower chamber for voting to impeach Paxton after only three days of consideration.
Patrick stated that due to the lack of time available for 150 members to thoroughly examine the articles, the Speaker and his team hastily pushed through the initial impeachment of a statewide official, marking the first occurrence in over a century.
Despite the victory, Paxton’s troubles are far from over. He faces trial on charges of securities fraud dating back to 2015.
More dangerous to Paxton is a federal investigation that began when the attorney general’s senior aides reported him to the FBI in 2020, alleging crimes that mirror the impeachment charges. That case has reached a grand jury in San Antonio. A new criminal indictment carries far higher stakes than impeachment. Campaigning to stay in office is one thing; fighting to remain out of prison is another entirely.
A career of controversy
Even in the long, sordid history of Texas political scandals, Paxton stands out. The accusations leveled against him in 21 years of public life ranged from felonious to farcical: that he duped investors to whom he sold stock, profited from inside information on a land deal, made false claims in court about the 2020 presidential election, and purloined another lawyer’s expensive pen.
Other episodes gave grist to criticism that Paxton considered himself above the law, like when he fled his home last year, in a truck driven by his wife, to avoid being served a subpoena.
Paxton’s association with scandal doesn’t seem to have humbled him, as he frequently asserts that he is victimized by his political adversaries. Moreover, it did not discourage voters from reelecting him in 2022, despite facing stiff competition from three notable primary challengers, including the former Land Commissioner George P. Bush.
His lack of accountability only served to embolden him, according to critics.
He requested the Texas House in February to cover the $3.3 million settlement that his office had reached with four whistleblowers. These individuals had claimed they were unjustly terminated for reporting him to the FBI. The agreement, aimed at avoiding a public trial, was ultimately declined by the Legislature.
In March, House members initiated a covert investigation in response to a request, driven by concerns of being involved in a concealment effort. The objective was to assess the validity of whistleblower allegations accusing Paxton of engaging in bribery and corruption.
The findings of the House investigative committee, released in May, were explosive: that Paxton had likely broken numerous state laws, misspent office funds and misused his power to benefit Paul, his friend and political donor. Hours before the hearing, in an apparent attempt to preempt it, Paxton accused House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, of presiding over the chamber while drunk and demanded he resign.
The House, including more than two-thirds of Republican members, voted to impeach Paxton three days later. The articles included allegations that Paxton hired an outside counsel who helped Paul investigate his enemies in business and law enforcement, pressured employees to issue a rushed legal opinion that helped Paul delay foreclosure sales of several properties and intervened to Paul’s benefit in a lawsuit between a charity and the investor — all while prioritizing Paul’s case over more pressing state issues.
“Mr. Paxton turned the keys of the office of attorney general over to Nate Paul,” impeachment manager Rep. Andrew Murr, R-Junction, said on the first day of the trial Sept. 5.
Paul, who did not testify, was indicted in federal court in June on charges alleging that he lied to financial institutions to obtain loans for his businesses.
A historic trial
Testimony brought to life the nearly 4,000 pages of evidence the prosecution had published. The whistleblowers described being befuddled for months in the spring and summer of 2020 about why Paxton was devoting so much of the agency’s attention to Paul and his complaints about law enforcement while ignoring their concerns that this was improper.
They grew troubled that Paxton shared Paul’s distrust of police and brushed off their warnings to distance himself from the real estate investor, whose business empire was crumbling and who was the subject of a federal criminal investigation.
David Maxwell, former head of the agency’s criminal division, testified that he warned him about Nate Paul’s criminal activities. Maxwell stated that if he did not distance himself from this individual and cease his actions, he would likely face indictment.
Paxton’s former top deputy said his boss’s bizarre behavior “finally made sense” when he realized Paul had hired the woman with whom he was having an affair, which allowed her to move to Austin where he could more easily see her. This discovery, coupled with the realization that an outside lawyer hired by Paxton, without their knowledge, had sent subpoenas to banks that had made loans to Paul’s businesses, prompted the whistleblowers to report the attorney general to the FBI.
“Mr. Paul’s situation was reaching a critical point,” stated Jeff Mateer, the former chief deputy of Paxton. “It was perceived as a moment of crisis.”
The outside lawyer, Brandon Cammack, testified that Paxton never told him of his friendship with Paul and then reneged on paying for his work after the whistleblowers exposed their arrangement.
Paxton’s defense team attempted to brand the whistleblowers as insubordinate, disloyal opportunists who jumped to conclusions based on incomplete information in staging what amounted to a palace coup. Buzbee, Paxton’s lead lawyer, said the former deputies owed it to the attorney general to share their concerns with him before going behind his back to the FBI.
Paxton’s team, along with his supporters outside the Capitol, capitalized on the responses of witnesses regarding the amount of evidence they possessed before reporting Paxton to the FBI. When whistleblower Ryan Vassar stated that they did not provide any evidence to the FBI, House lawyer Rusty Hardin had to guide him towards a clarification, asserting that Vassar’s witness account was evidence in itself.
Some of the defense’s arguments bordered on conspiratorial, hinting at a broader divide within the Republican Party between Paxton’s far-right faction and the establishment wing including Phelan, Gov. Greg Abbott and Patrick.
Buzbee implied that Bush, who was once Paxton’s rival, might have colluded with the whistleblowers. This insinuation arose from the fact that Bush sought to reactivate his law license on the exact day when the whistleblowers approached the FBI. The suggestion was that Bush did this in anticipation of being appointed as Paxton’s successor.
“Have you ever come across that age-old adage, ‘there are no coincidences in Austin?’ ” Buzbee inquired, alluding to a saying unfamiliar to most.
Despite Paxton’s condemnation of the impeachment as an unjust process driven by Democrats and liberal Republicans, the conservative credentials of the whistleblowers presented a counterargument. These individuals, all employed by Paxton, consisted of a passionate advocate for religious freedom who was nominated by Trump for a federal judgeship, a seasoned federal prosecutor, and an esteemed former Texas Ranger.
Paxton’s team also made efforts to capitalize on the conservative sentiment of distrust towards federal law enforcement. Attorney General’s lawyer, Dan Cogdell, argued that Paul’s allegations of mistreatment by Department of Justice employees during the 2019 raid on his home and business should be thoroughly investigated.
Cogdell successfully convinced the young lawyer to acknowledge that the attorney general’s main objective was to “uncover the truth,” which he argued was not consistent with a conspiracy to assist Paul.
The defense presented documents suggesting that the Paxtons paid for the renovation work on their Austin home, refuting the bribery allegation against Paul.
Buzbee challenged the credibility of Paxton’s personal aide, Drew Wicker, as he claimed to have overheard a conversation where the attorney general expressed his desire for granite countertops in the kitchen. The contractor allegedly responded by saying he needed to consult with Nate.
During cross-examination, he successfully obtained confirmation from Wicker that the photographs taken prior to the 2020 renovation and those captured last month exhibited no alterations to the kitchen. Buzbee proposed the idea of taking senators on a bus ride to the Tarrytown house as a definitive solution to resolve the matter.
The defense was challenged when the prosecution presented evidence of Paul’s direct communication with the contractor regarding repairs in other parts of the house. Erin Epley, the impeachment lawyer, highlighted the fact that on the day the whistleblowers reported Paxton to the FBI, he supposedly made the payment of $121,617 for the work. This timing led Epley to suggest that Paxton sent the money as soon as he became aware of law enforcement’s involvement.
During a critical juncture nearing the trial’s conclusion, the House sought to summon Laura Olson, whom they believed to be the alleged lover of Paxton. Notably, Olson had never disclosed details about their relationship to the public. While waiting in the legislative library of the Capitol, Olson’s lawyers conveyed that she would exercise her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, leading Patrick to ultimately rule her as unavailable for testimony.
Although she had the potential to assist the prosecution in substantiating its second bribery allegation – that Paul employed her in exchange for Paxton’s favors – the anticipated bombshell revelation never materialized. Consequently, the prosecution concluded its case that same afternoon.
In his concluding statement, Buzbee asserted that the allegations against the accused man were entirely baseless. He then posed a thought-provoking question, wondering if the individuals present possessed the courage to vote in line with the compelling evidence presented. Buzbee expressed his belief in their ability to do so and expressed hope and prayer for the same.
Ultimately, most senators reached a consensus.
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