Corrupt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was acquitted of all 16 impeachment charges over the weekend that was brought on by the State’s lower chamber.
According to Bolts, tons of evidence was brought forth against Paxton who allegedly was using his powerful position within the State to shield his wealthy friends and donors from their own legal challenges and adversaries. This apparently included a donor who supplied Paxton’s mistress with a patronage gig and renovated the AG’s home.
That all changed after just a couple months on the job, according to a transcript of Penley’s interview with investigators for the Texas House earlier this year. In December 2019, Paxton asked Penley to meet him at a Dallas Starbucks before walking his senior deputy out to his car for a conference call about a matter of personal importance to the attorney general. “This is a friend of mine, Nate Paul, and he’s had some issues with the FBI,” Paxton said as introduction after putting the call on speaker. “I want you to listen to his story and then let’s talk about it.”
Penley’s call with Paul, a Paxton donor and Austin investor with an imploding real estate empire, was one of many meetings where Paxton’s subordinates have said he pressed them to use the immense powers of his office to help with his friend’s legal woes. By Oct. 1, 2020, Penley and several other senior aides had blown the whistle and alerted law enforcement to say they believed that Paxton had broken laws by intervening in legal cases on Paul’s behalf. They claimed the attorney general had even gone so far as to help his friend orchestrate subpoenas targeting his foes—including banks that were in litigation against the real estate investor and law enforcement agents who were investigating him for financial crimes (Paul was ultimately indicted in federal court this past June).
Paxton fired most of the whistleblowers, including Penley, but some of them sued and earlier this year succeeded in forcing the AG to apologize and agree to a $3.3 million settlement—which Paxton then asked Texas lawmakers to pay for with state funds.
Bolts
The aforementioned whistleblowers would eventually go on to sue Paxton, force him to apologize, and settle for millions of dollars. However, Paxton would eventually look to the State taxpayers to cover the bill for his legal woes against the whistle-blowers.
Sometimes, political wins can encourage the right to take more retaliatory actions, especially when they were successful before. In this instance, far-right Texas officials are looking to get even with Paxton’s critics, which includes two Republicans who supported Texas Democrats in impeaching Paxton. And, according to the Texas Tribune, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan is apparently public enemy number one for those far-right Texas government officials.
“You and your band of RINOs are now on notice,” Defend Texas Liberty PAC leader Jonathan Stickland tweeted at Phelan on Saturday, as voting continued in the Texas Senate. “You will be held accountable for this entire sham. We will never stop. Retire now.”
Texas Tribune
Unsurprisingly too, Paxton loyalists also controlled a manufactured and spread a narrative back in May that Texas Republicans supporting the impeachment cause were working with the Biden White House.
