It’s a little early for Donald Trump to start making personnel plans for a possible second term. Election Day 2024 is still 167 days away, and while polling averages suggest the former president has a slight advantage, there’s no reason for the presumptive Republican nominee to start picking Cabinet members.
That said, Trump was willing to answer a question over the weekend about who might be in the mix for his next attorney general. The Texas Tribune reported:
Former President Donald Trump said he would consider tapping Ken Paxton for U.S. attorney general if he wins a second term in the White House, calling his longtime ally “a very talented guy” and praising his tenure as Texas’ chief legal officer.
When KDFW in Dallas asked the former president whether he’d consider Paxton to lead the Justice Department, Trump replied, “I would, actually. He’s very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he’s a very talented guy.”
A variety of adjectives come to mind when thinking about the Texas attorney general, though “talented” isn’t necessarily at the top of the list.
In case readers might benefit from a refresher, it was just two months ago when Paxton faced felony charges as part of a securities fraud case. As the trial date drew closer, the Texas Republican agreed to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution, take legal ethics classes, and complete 100 hours of community service.
He was no doubt pleased to have the matter behind him, though the case was just part of a larger set of troubles. The criminal allegations, for example, were distinct from the state bar investigation into Paxton’s ridiculous efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
What’s more, the Republican’s securities fraud allegations were also unrelated to the corruption allegations raised by leading top officials in Paxton’s office, which are currently the subject of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. The matter was also the subject of a state House investigation, which 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 scandal led to Paxton’s impeachment, though he was acquitted by his partisan allies in the state Senate.
What’s more, even if we were to put aside the Texan’s many scandals, there’s also Paxton’s record and judgment to consider: It was the state attorney general, for example, who also fought to prevent Kate Cox from terminating a dangerous pregnancy late last year. This is the same Paxton who sued pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, for example, as part of a weird gambit related to Covid vaccines; opened an investigation into Media Matters over its efforts related to Elon Musk’s social media platform; sued Yelp as part of a dispute over so-called “crisis pregnancy centers”; and issued investigative subpoenas demanding medical records from a hospital in a different state. But Paxton also led “Lawyers for Trump” in 2020, and he recently showed up to express his support for the former president at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, so if the presumptive GOP nominee returns to the White House, and Paxton wants to be attorney general, I like his chances. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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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