Another former Paxton devotee says AG’s office ‘hijacked’ for donor. See a pattern yet?| Opinion
READ MORE
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.
Expand All
Another day, another squeaky clean conservative lawyer testifying that he was alarmed at Attorney General Ken Paxton’s actions office.
Ryan Bangert, the former deputy first assistant to Paxton, remained fervent and unflinching throughout his appearance Thursday at Paxton’s impeachment trial in the Senate. The House has brought forth charges of bribery and abuse of power against Paxton, who would be removed from office if convicted on any charge.
Bangert’s pedigree is as squeaky clean as Jeff Mateer’s, the first witness in the trial, and his delivery was more stoic, if punchy at times. A seasoned trial attorney himself who now works for the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization with 15 Supreme Court wins on First Amendment and religious liberty issues, Bangert kept his cool and pushed back a bit while being cross-examined.
Often, when told he must answer “yes” or “no,” Bangert would respond that he would if he could and went on to explain his answer, such was his penchant for being thorough.
Throughout questioning, Bangert maintained that over the course of 2020, Paxton’s behavior became increasingly alarming. Towards the end of the day Tuesday, Bangert said Paxton was “acting like a man with a gun to his head” when he was trying to finalize an opinion that would stop outdoor home foreclosures during the pandemic.
Bangert also testified Tuesday that Paxton asked him to intervene on behalf of campaign donor Nate Paul three times in a six-month period and Bangert said Paxton felt like he had been wronged by law enforcement.
On Thursday, the court discussed Paxton’s insistence in hiring an outside lawyer to help investigate how Paul, had allegedly been wronged. Bangert repeatedly objected to that idea.
“I was deeply concerned that the name and authority and power of our office had been, in my view, hijacked to serve the interests of an individual against the interest of the broader public,” Bangert said.
Eventually, Bangert and others reported Paxton to the FBI after exhausting their efforts within his office to halt or make sense of Paxton’s behavior, he said. Bangert’s explicit reasoning was compelling.
“I went to the FBI because I believed, based on my experience over the previous nine months, that the attorney general had abandoned his obligation to work on behalf of the interests of the people of Texas, to serve the interests of one person: Nate Paul,” Bangert said.
An attorney for Paxton, Anthony Osso said: “Did you consider it a mutiny?”
Bangert responded: ”It was not a mutiny. ... We were protecting the interest of the state, and ultimately I believe protecting the interest of the attorney general. And in my view, signing our professional death warrant at the same time.”
The effect of Bangert’s decisions on his job security became a point of contention. Osso clarified that Bangert was not fired, but he voluntarily resigned. Bangert maintained that he was “constructively discharged,” a specific legal phrase that means, “when a worker’s resignation or retirement may be found not to be voluntary because the employer has created a hostile or intolerable work environment or has applied other forms of pressure or coercion which forced the employee to quit or resign.” Bangert did not describe this definition in court.
During cross-examination, Osso certainly gave Bangert a run for it, although much of the pushback felt more like smoke and mirrors than any kind of specific area where Bangert had erred or fabricated. How the jury reacted to Bangert’s testimony remains to be seen.
This story was originally published September 8, 2023 at 5:32 AM.
.JPG)
