It costs a lot of money to fund the office of a state attorney general for him or her to do their job well.
It costs a lot more money to fund a corrupt or incompetent attorney general.
Don’t ask how much it costs to fund the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
Paxton may be the worst attorney general money can buy.
The Texas Tribune reported in February 2024 that “a private law firm has charged the state nearly $700,000 to defend” Paxton’s office “against the whistleblower lawsuit that led to his impeachment.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/06/attorney-general-ken-paxton-whistleblower-lawsuit/
He was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives, but acquitted on all counts by the Senate in September 2023.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/09/17/ken-paxton-impeachment-trial-scandal/
Former President Trump said he saved Paxton from impeachment.
Trump and Paxton are connected by their own impeachments – and by Paxton’s tawdry efforts to keep Trump in the White House and by Trump’s tawdry efforts to keep Paxton in the attorney general’s office.
What does a vindictive, mentally unstable, corrupt, adulterous megalomaniac like Trump possibly have in common with another vindictive, mentally unstable, corrupt, adulterous megalomaniac like Paxton?
It’s one of life’s mysteries.
When Trump lost the 2020 Presidential Election, he blamed his defeat on voter fraud and challenged the election results 60 times in court.
Judges rejected Trump’s argument in all 60 cases that the word of a vindictive, mentally unstable, corrupt, adulterous, megalomaniac does not overrule the constitution.
Paxton filed suit in Texas v. Pennsylvania challenging the results of the presidential election in four states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – neither of which, as you can see for yourself, was Texas.
Paxton filed the lawsuit after the attorneys general in those states refused to file the lawsuit and after other Republicans told Paxton he was a putz.
Not really.
But it’s pretty clear they thought Paxton was a putz because it’s obvious that Paxton is a putz.
Richard L. Hasen, a scholar of election law who teaches at the University of California, Irvine, called Paxton’s lawsuit “a heaping pile of a lawsuit.”
The New York Times quoted another lawyer as saying, “There was no plausible chance the court will take this up. It was really disgraceful to put this in front of justices of the Supreme Court.”
The Supreme Court rejected Paxton’s lawsuit, saying Texas could not challenge the votes in other states.
Paxton was therefore blocked from putting the con man ahead of the Constitution.
Fox News reported that Paxton spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally south of the White House on January 6, 2021, before thousands of insurrectionists violently charged the Capitol and tried to overthrow the results of the election.
Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representative a week later.
He was acquitted by the U.S. Senate a month later.
Several months later, a number of Paxton’s top deputies went to an FBI office in Austin, Texas, and accused their boss of taking “illegal actions” to protect “a friend and campaign donor, Austin real estate investor Nate Paul, who was under federal investigation for fraud.”
Paxton’s association with Paul, the Texas Tribune reported, “was bizarre, obsessive and so far beyond normal operations at the attorney general’s office that the agency’s top officials struggled to convey their concerns during the hours-long meeting with two FBI agents.
“In addition to obstruction of justice, harassment and abuse of office, they added, Paxton had apparently accepted bribes from Paul.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/16/ken-paxton-impeachment-allegations/
David Maxwell, who once worked for Paxton, said he tried to warn his former boss about his relationship with Paul.
“I said, ‘Ken, you’re going to get yourself in trouble, and I wish you’d listen to me,’” Maxwell recalled telling Paxton. “‘You could be charged with bribery.’”
Paxton didn’t listen.
“The depth of corruption is astonishing,” said criminal defense attorney Dick DeGuerin, who prosecuted Paxton.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ken-paxtons-impeachment-trial-what-to-know-how-to-watch
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-texas-ag-ken-paxtons-indictment-is-a-bipartisan-win
Paxton retaliated against the four whistleblowers who went to the FBI by firing them.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/16/ken-paxton-impeachment-whistleblowers/
The whistleblowers’ accusations led to Paxton’s impeachment, and testimony during the impeachment revealed that Paxton, among other things, using a pseudonym to make repeated trips to visit his alleged mistress.
The state House of Representatives vote 121-23 to impeach Paxton.
Former President Trump, who faces more than 90 felonies, pronounced himself a character witness for Paxton.
So Paxton at least had that going for him.
The Senate acquitted Paxton in September 2023.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/09/16/ken-paxton-acquitted-impeachment-texas-attorney-general/
The whistleblowers, who Paxton fired, sued Paxton, arguing that “the Texas Whistleblower Act protected them from retaliation,” the Texas Tribune reported.
Which of course brings us back to the $700,000 Texas has paid to defend Paxton and his office “against the whistleblower lawsuit that led to his impeachment.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/16/ken-paxton-impeachment-whistleblowers/
