Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton delivers a statement on impeachment in his office, Austin, Texas. Eric Gay/AP
In a stunning turn of events, the GOP-controlled Texas House of Representatives voted Saturday to impeach the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The state House of Representatives approved twenty bills with a vote of 121 to 23, five other members being absent or abstaining. Articles of impeachment Paxton for bribery or obstruction of justice. Among other things, Paxton is accused of doing favors for a top campaign donor, then firing whistleblowers in his office—four high-ranking Republican staffers—who raised legal concerns about his actions. Paxton then tried to get state legislators to pay for a $3.3m settlement to settle their claims.
“Attorney General Paxton abused his office and his power for personal gain,” David Spiller, Republican State Rep. and member of the House Committee on General Investigating, said. “He put the interests of himself over the laws of the state of Texas.”
Paxton’s removal from office will be temporary pending the outcome of a state Senate trial. Texas’ legislature is one of the most conservative in the country, which makes Saturday’s vote all the more remarkable.
Paxton is best known as a staunch ally of Donald Trump who in December 2020 filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state of Texas that sought to invalidate presidential election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected the case, because Texas lacked standing to challenge voting procedures in other states.
Paxton was Indicted The court or the voters have not yet held him accountable for securities fraud committed in 2015, just a few months after he was sworn in. On May 25, after years of corruption allegations against him, the Texas House committee unanimously recommended that the charges be brought. This led to a vote by the entire House. Paxton called Speaker of the House Dade Phelan shortly before the House investigation was made public. ResignationFalsely accusing him that he presided over the corpse while drunk.
Paxton has portrayed the impeachment charges against him as an effort to overturn the will of the voters—which, as my colleague Tim Murphy wrote, is rather astonishing, considering Paxton’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and nullify ten million votes cast for Biden in four battleground states whose voters he didn’t represent.
Paxton has been able to survive scandals after scandals by aligning with Trump and the Far-right causes It is these things that motivate his MAGA supporters. Trump’s vote before the election Writer “Free Ken Paxton” Truth Social and pledged to “fight” Republican lawmakers who voted against impeachment. Paxton called state legislators on the House floor. They are a threat The following are some examples of how to use “political consequences in their next election,” Charlie Geren is a Republican State Representative and a member of House Investigative Committee. But his time may have finally run out—and it was Republicans, not Democrats or the liberal media, who finally sealed his fate.
As she laid out the many charges against the attorney general—including allegations that Paxton induced a top donor to give his mistress a job in Austin so that he didn’t have to drive to San Antonio to see her—fellow committee member Ann Johnson, a Democrat from Houston, said the legislature faced a “fork in the road.”
“Either this is going to be the beginning of the end of his criminal reign,” She said “or God help us with the harms that will come to all Texans if he is allowed to stay the top cop.”