Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been scandal-plagued for years. Paxton’s most recent slate of scandals include his impeachment in May of 2023 – which resulted in his removal from office for more than three months – due to alleged bribe-taking and Paxton’s questionable relationship to Texas GOP mega-donor Nate Paul. Paxton was ultimately acquitted by the Texas State Senate, after his billionaire backers threatened to primary anyone who voted against him, leading to none of his impeachment articles receiving the 21 votes required to convict. Relatedly, Paxton was also previously accused of retaliatory firings relating to FBI whistleblowers, and the resulting $3.3 million settlement from that inquiry (a number that Paxton wanted Texas taxpayers to foot for him) is what triggered the impeachment inquiry in the first place. That money has not yet been approved by the Texas legislature, and its withholding re-sparked whistleblowers’ lawsuit against Paxton to continue in November 2023.
Of course, these scandals aren’t simply a thing of the present. Paxton was also indicted on felony securities fraud in 2015 for “allegedly persuading investors to buy stock in McKinney-based Servergy Inc. without disclosing that he would be compensated for it.” In 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Paxton over his actions related to Servergy, though the lawsuit was dismissed by a federal court a year later.
Not to mention, Paxton aided Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election by filing litigation challenging the election results of four states. Soon after filing, Paxton himself spoke at Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, 2021. After the crowd later stormed the Capitol, Paxton blamed the violence on “Antifa” and “claimed Trump supporters weren’t responsible for the insurrection.” In 2022, the State Bar of Texas sued Paxton over his participation in Trump’s voter fraud conspiracies.
Paxton has been Texas’ state Attorney General since 2015, and was RAGA’s Chairman from 2018 – 2019.
###
“Ken Paxton by Gage Skidmore” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.