Who to blame for AG Ken Paxton impeachment mess? Start with Texas Republicans | Opinion
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The saga of Ken Paxton: Our Opinion coverage
Our Editorial Board has closely followed the saga of Attorney General Ken Paxton. Read our coverage to catch up on the issues in his impeachment, and check out our analysis as the trial unfolds.
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One of the things Republicans typically do poorly compared with their Democrat counterparts is circle the wagons around their wounded or targeted politicians or causes.
But that has not been the case with Attorney General Ken Paxton, such is the extent of his political gravitas, donor backing and rainmaker prowess across the state.
Paxton is a fool but he is not just anybody’s fool — he is the GOP’s and he is intensely selfish, blatantly calculated and full of risk. After his lawyers moved to dismiss nearly all his articles of impeachment because they happened before the 2022 election, it became clear he is entitled as you think he is.
Not a great look for the Texas GOP.
The articles of impeachment include bribery, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice. Many of the charges are related to Paxton’s relationship with Nate Paul and the favors Paxton did for him and Paxton’s mistress, using his office as a merry-go-round for personal and political advantage, all while pretending to do the extraordinary amount of work required to be the AG of a state this large.
And yet, even after his own party voted to impeach him and hold a forthcoming trial for impeachment, conservative media has done its part in coming to his defense.
Several outlets have essentially said: He’s not actually guilty, it’s just the “establishment” at work. It’s one thing to be intensely loyal to a party, but to be loyal to a party over someone accused of these crimes is a bridge too far.
Case in point from “American Greatness,” by Mark Pulliam, a writer and lawyer-turned-commentator. He writes: “Paxton has been subjected to longstanding prosecutorial misconduct in still-pending criminal proceedings, such as the government’s hiring of partisan mercenaries to act as prosecutors, filing frivolous charges, moving to change venue to deprive Paxton of a jury of his peers, and colluding with reporters to prejudice the public against Paxton. None of these dirty tricks worked as planned to cripple Paxton politically.”
Pulliam argues Paxton’s indictments are just due to the weaponization of the criminal justice system (by Republicans) and that the pending impeachment trial is all just to subvert the will of the people who voted for him. Pulliam makes a similar case in The Federalist. (Full disclosure: I was a senior contributor there for many years.)
Multiple Republican Texas politicians condemned Paxton’s impeachment from the beginning, just out of pure party loyalty. Same with folks in Congress, like Rep. Ronny Jackson and Sen. Ted Cruz. The Texas GOP called it a “sham impeachment” in May.
However, Paxton’s charges are weighty, and if he’s found guilty it will raise raise some serious questions for the Texas GOP.
The GOP has known what Paxton’s been accused of — at least bits and pieces of it, if not the full picture — for many years. His securities fraud accusations go back many years. That’s when the GOP leadership should have let their darling political star go. But they too were charmed by the gravitas and the oil-donor backing. Hardly any Democrat AG comes close to being a formidable opponent, which is why Paxton has won election twice.
Ben Domenech makes the case in The Spectator World, where he is editor-at-large, that if Paxton escapes conviction, he could wind up even more powerful.
“For almost a quarter century, the Republican Party has totally controlled Texas. While it’s transformed the state in many ways, the party has also grown fat and happy, bloated and lackadaisical, slouching into a lazy, nepotistic apparatus as easily as a worn leather chair in a cigar bar where the waitresses wear skirts that are just an extra inch too short. Paxton’s existence is a ramification of that — and so is the mess that Texas Republicans have on their hands today,” Domenech writes.
Even if over the course of the last two elections, there was not enough evidence against Paxton to be impeached, which seems unlikely, he has been a source of embarrassment and awful press. The AG office itself is in shambles.
The GOP was lazy and, now, a controversial impeachment trial is what Republicans have to show for it.
When will they learn that when it comes to Paxton and politics, all that glitters is not gold?
Editor’s note: Updated Aug. 15 to clarify that a quote comes from the Texas Government Code, not the state constitution.
This story was originally published August 8, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
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