The Texas Senate is set to gavel in Tuesday for the impeachment trial of state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a formal airing of corruption allegations that could lead Republican lawmakers to oust one of their own as lead lawyer for America’s largest red state.
In May, the state House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach Paxton on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust. It was a sudden rebuke by the GOP-controlled chamber of a star of the conservative legal movement who has weathered years of scandal and alleged crimes.
Paxton is only the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to be impeached. The House vote suspended the 60-year-old from the office he used in 2020 to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of Donald Trump.
Paxton decried the impeachment as a “politically motivated sham” and said he expects to be acquitted. His lawyers have said he won’t testify before the Senate, but the trial remains fraught with political and legal risk.
The attorney general is under federal investigation for the same conduct that prompted his impeachment, and his lawyers say removal from office would open the door to Paxton taking a plea in a long-stalled state fraud case.
Here’s what Paxton is accused of and how the trial will work.
WHY WAS PAXTON IMPEACHED?
At the center of Paxton’s impeachment is his relationship with a wealthy donor that prompted the attorney general’s top deputies to revolt.
In 2020, the group reported their boss to the FBI, saying Paxton broke the law to help Austin real estate developer Nate Paul fight a separate federal investigation. Paul allegedly reciprocated, including by employing a woman with whom Paxton had an extramarital affair.
Paul was indicted in June on federal criminal charges that he made false statements to banks to get more than $170 million in loans. He pleaded not guilty.
Paul gave Paxton a $25,000 campaign donation in 2018 and the men bonded over a shared feeling that they were the targets of corrupt law enforcement, according to a memo by one of the staffers who went to the FBI. Paxton was indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015 but is yet to stand trial.
The eight deputies who reported Paxton — largely staunch conservatives whom he handpicked for their jobs — went to law enforcement after he ignored their warnings to not hire an outside lawyer to investigate Paul’s allegations of wrongdoing by the FBI. All eight were subsequently fired or quit and four of them sued under the state whistleblower act.
Paxton is also accused of pressuring his staff to intervene in other of Paul’s legal troubles, including litigation with an Austin-based nonprofit group and property foreclosure sales.
WHAT DID PAXTON GET IN RETURN?
In return, the impeachment prosecutors say Paul bankrolled renovations to one of Paxton’s homes and facilitated his affair.
Paxton privately acknowledged the affair with a state Senate aide in 2018 and told a small group of staff that it was over. But the impeachment prosecutors say Paxton carried on with the woman, who Paul hired in Austin so she could be closer to the attorney general. The developer also allegedly set up an Uber account under a pseudonym that Paxton used to discreetly see the woman.
After Paxton’s staff revolted, the attorney general rushed to cover up that Paul had paid for costly renovations to his million-dollar Austin home, according to the prosecutors. Paxton’s lawyers released documents showing he paid a company tied to Paul hours after his deputies went to the FBI.
HOW WILL THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL WORK?
The Senate trial is expected to last two or three weeks and will have elements that resemble proceedings in criminal and civil courts.
