For Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the tipping point wasn’t his indictment over alleged securities fraud. Or the state bar investigation. Or the evidence that he weaponized his office.
Rather, what’s proving to be the Republican’s biggest problem is the fact that several of his top aides accused Paxton of brazen corruption, which is currently the subject of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. The matter was also the subject of a state House investigation, which last week concluded that the state attorney general repeatedly broke the law by, among other things, abusing his office to hide an extramarital affair, doing special favors for a donor, and retaliating against perceived foes.
The allegations were so serious that, as the Associated Press reported, the GOP-led state House in Austin impeached the scandal-plagued state attorney general on Saturday.
Texas’ Republican-led House of Representatives impeached state Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust, a sudden, historic rebuke of a GOP official who rose to be a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and alleged crimes. Impeachment triggers Paxton’s immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the state Senate and empowers Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas’ top lawyer in the interim.
The final tally wasn’t especially close: As the dust settled, Paxton was impeached on a 121-23 vote. The AP report added that he is “only the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.”
To be sure, the state attorney general was not without GOP allies. The problem is, they struggled to come up with much of a defense.
Rep. Ronny Jackson, for example, argued that Paxton “is the BEST Attorney General in the entire country” and “fights for Texans.” The far-right congressman did not even try to contest the underlying allegations or the evidence. Around the same time, Sen. Ted Cruz added that Paxton is “a steadfast conservative.” That’s true, but again, the state attorney general is facing specific allegations of corruption, which the senator chose to ignore.
Donald Trump also weighed in on Paxton’s behalf, calling him “hard working and effective,” before adding, “Hopefully Republicans in the Texas House will agree that this is a very unfair process that should not be allowed to happen or proceed — I will fight you if it does.” (Paxton led Lawyers for Trump during the 2020 campaign.)
In the state capitol, meanwhile, GOP state Rep. Tony Tinderholt told his colleagues, “Don’t give Democrats another victory handed to them on a silver platter.”
Note, none of these Paxton allies commented on the merits of the charges themselves. Rather, they said the state attorney general shouldn’t be impeached, despite the evidence and the seriousness of the allegations, because they see him as a partisan ally. In other words, Paxton’s Republican supporters aren’t arguing that he’s innocent, they’re arguing that it doesn’t matter whether he’s guilty. It’s a pitch predicated on breathtaking indifference to alleged corruption. What’s more, as the vote tally showed, it was a pitch that failed completely. The case now heads to Texas’ Republican-led state Senate, where, incidentally, the state attorney general’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, serves as a member. The trial in the chamber will begin no later than August 28.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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