Wow.
A crook any way you look
A Texas House committee heard stunning testimony Wednesday from investigators over allegations of a yearslong pattern of misconduct and questionable actions by Attorney General Ken Paxton, the result of a probe the committee had secretly authorized in March.
In painstaking and methodical detail in a rare public forum, four investigators for the House General Investigating Committee testified that they believe Paxton broke numerous state laws, misspent office funds and misused his power to benefit a friend and political donor.
Their inquiry focused first on a proposed $3.3 million agreement to settle a whistleblower lawsuit filed by four high-ranking deputies who were fired after accusing Paxton of accepting bribes and other misconduct.
Committee Chair Andrew Murr said the payout, which the Legislature would have to authorize, would also prevent a trial where evidence of Paxton’s alleged misdeeds would be presented publicly. Committee members questioned, in essence, if lawmakers were being asked to participate in a cover-up.
“It is alarming and very serious having this discussion when millions of taxpayer dollars have been asked to remedy what is alleged to be some wrongs,” Murr said. “That’s something we have to grapple with. It’s challenging.”
Many of the allegations detailed Wednesday were already known, but the public airing of them revealed the wide scope of the committee’s investigation into the state’s top lawyer and a member of the ruling Republican Party. The investigative committee has broad power to investigate state officials for wrongdoing, and three weeks ago the House expelled Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, on its recommendation.
In this case, it could recommend the House censure or impeach Paxton — a new threat to an attorney general who has for years survived scandals and been reelected twice despite securities fraud charges in 2015 and news of a federal investigation into the whistleblowers’ claims in 2020.
Erin Epley, lead counsel for the investigating committee, said the inquiry also delved into the whistleblowers’ allegations by conducting multiple interviews with employees of Paxton’s agency — many of whom expressed fears of retaliation by Paxton if their testimony were to be revealed — as well as the whistleblowers and others with pertinent information.
According to state law, Epley told the committee in a hearing at the Capitol, a government official cannot fire or retaliate against “a public employee who in good faith reports a violation of law … to an appropriate law enforcement authority.”
The four whistleblowers, however, were fired months after telling federal and state investigators about their concerns over Paxton’s actions on behalf of Nate Paul, an Austin real estate investor and a friend and political donor to Paxton.
“Each of these four men is a conservative Republican civil servant,” Epley said. “Interviews show that they wanted to be loyal to General Paxton and they tried to advise him well, often and strongly, and when that failed each was fired after reporting General Paxton to law enforcement.”
Epley and the other investigators then walked the committee through the whistleblowers’ allegations, including help Paxton gave Paul that went beyond the normal scope of his duties.
“I ask that you look at the pattern and the deviations from the norm, questions not just of criminal activity but of ethical impropriety and for lacking in transparency,” investigator Erin Epley told the committee. “I ask you to consider the benefits [for Paxton].”
[…]
The investigators interviewed 15 employees for the attorney general’s office, including Joshua Godby, who worked for the open records division when Paxton pressured the division’s staff to get involved in a records fight to benefit Paul in a lawsuit.
Out of the 15 people, investigators said, all except one expressed concern about retaliation from Paxton for speaking on the matter. The investigators also interviewed a special prosecutor, Brian Wice, in a separate securities fraud case that has been ongoing for eight years, as well as representatives for the Mitte Foundation, an Austin nonprofit involved in a legal dispute with Paul.
The investigators outlined the alleged favors Paxton did for Paul. In exchange, Paul helped with a “floor to ceiling renovation” of Paxton’s Austin home and employed a woman with whom Paxton was allegedly in a relationship. Paxton is married to state Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, who learned of the affair in 2019, leading to a brief hiatus in the relationship before it resumed in 2020, Epley told the committee.
See here for where we started. I assume that “brief hiatus” is in the affair, which means that, um, he’s still canoodling with whoever his not-Angela inamorata is. I dunno, maybe someone should look into that a bit more? Like, maybe there’s some more potential lawbreaking or rules-violating there? Just a thought.
Wow.
Addressing the House Committee on General Investigating, the team outlined several potential criminal offenses they alleged Paxton committed including abuse of official capacity, misuse of official information, misapplication of fiduciary property and accepting an improper gift.
They said Paxton improperly used his office’s resources to help real estate developer and campaign donor Nate Paul on multiple occasions throughout 2020, raising alarm bells among his senior-most aides who viewed Paxton’s personal interventions as highly unusual and unethical. Some of the alleged crimes are felonies, the team noted.
“So is it fair to say the OAG’s office was effectively hijacked for an investigation by Nate Paul through the Attorney General Ken Paxton?” Committee Vice Chair Ann Johnson, D-Houston, asked.
Investigator Erin Epley, a former assistant US attorney, responded: “That would be my opinion.”
[…]
Earlier this year, Paxton and the whistleblowers announced a tentative settlement agreement.
The agency agreed to pay $3.3 million to the four whistleblowers, contingent on legislative approval, and Paxton would apologize for calling them “rogue employees.” Neither side admitted to “liability or fault” by agreeing to the settlement.
The request spurred the House ethics committee to look into the funding request. While the probe began in March, Murr and Phelan first confirmed the inquiry on Tuesday.
Epley said the team reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, including emails, contracts, criminal complaints and lawsuit documents over months. They also interviewed the whistleblowers, other agency employees, officials in the local prosecutor’s office and more.
The team’s presentation to the committee, which lasted more than three hours, delved into years of alleged misconduct by Paxton, including the whistleblower accusations as well as active state securities fraud indictments.
They did not shed any new light on Paxton and Paul’s relationship. But the team said it found evidence to support the whistleblower’s allegations that Paul helped remodel the kitchen in Paxton’s Austin home and secured a job for a woman with whom Paxton was allegedly having an affair.
The investigators said Paxton seemed to sympathize with Paul, whose businesses and offices were raided by the FBI in 2019. Over the course of the next year, investigators say Paxton began personally steering the agency to intervene in matters benefiting Paul.
It began with public records requests, when Paxton repeatedly pushed staff to release sensitive FBI documents to Paul’s legal team, the investigators said. Paxton told an agency staffer he believed Paul was being railroaded, said investigator Terese Buess, who previously led the Harris County prosecutor’s public integrity unit.
“[Paxton] said he did not want to use his office, the OAG, to help the feds” or or [the Department of Public Safety,” she added.
Murr stopped Buess at that moment, asking, “Did you just state, I want to be very clear, that the Attorney General for the state of Texas said he didn’t not want to use his office to help law enforcement?”
Buess responded: “That is exactly what was relayed to us.”
Over the coming months, and against the advice of top staff, he directed the agency attorneys to issue a rushed legal opinion that Paul’s team used to fight a dozen foreclosures, the team noted. And Paxton ordered staff to intervene in a legal conflict between Paul’s businesses and a local charity in a way that helped the developer, investigators said.
“General Paxton, in this instance, charged with protecting Texas charitable foundations, disregarded his duty and improperly used his office, his staff, his resources to the detriment of the (charity) and to the benefit of a single person: Nate Paul,” Buess said.
[…]
The investigators also discussed in detail the active criminal fraud cases against the attorney general. Paxton was indicted for felony securities fraud eight years ago related to his involvement with a North Texas technology firm but has not yet faced trial.
An unrelated bribery investigation also came up. In 2017, the Kaufman County district attorney looked into concerns that Paxton took a $100,000 gift from a man his agency had investigated for Medicaid fraud. She closed the investigation after determining Paxton did not break state laws because he had a personal relationship with the donor.
The team spoke with at least 15 people and said all but one had concerns about retaliation inside the agency. They did not list who they interviewed. It is unclear whether they spoke with Paxton or Paul.
The four members of the investigative team all said they believe sufficient evidence supported the whistleblower’s allegations. They listed a series of crimes they believe Paxton may have committed, including abuse of official capacity and misuse of official information, both felony offenses.
“In relation to many of these crimes, there’s of course the aiding and abetting portion of it,” said investigator Mark Donnelly, another former prosecutor. “He’s acting with other individuals, and conspiracy to commit crimes that violate both the state of Texas laws and federal laws.”
“That’s alarming to hear,” Murr responded. “It curls my mustache.”
Okay first, go back to the Trib story above and look at the picture of Andrew Murr. You’ll know how serious that statement of his is. Second, those are some real greatest hits that this committee is playing. I mean, the Kaufman County bribery investigation, which ultimately went nowhere? Are they thinking about that as background material – you know, “establishing a pattern”, as they say on “Law & Order” – or do they think there was something that should have been acted upon? The mind reels. Finally, maybe the Justice Department ought to perhaps Do Something with this investigation, which is now in their laps? And maybe Texas Democrats ought to push them to take action on this? Again, just a thought.
And for the third time, wow.
The House investigators, a group of five attorneys with experience in public integrity law and white collar crime, said they reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, including emails, contracts and criminal complaints, and interviewed 15 people. All but one stated they had “grave concerns” regarding Paxton showing hostility or retaliation toward them for their participation.
Paxton signed a settlement with the whistleblowers in February for $3.3 million, but the deal is effectively dead because the Legislature has declined to fund it this session, which whistleblowers have said was a condition of the agreement. The session ends May 29. The whistleblowers’ attorneys have asked the Texas Supreme Court to continue on with the suit.
Epley told committee members Wednesday that Paxton violated the state’s open records law to help Paul obtain information about the FBI’s investigation into him and a raid it had executed against his home and business office.
The attorney general’s office, which is charged with determining whether information needs to be released, had issued a “no-opinion” ruling on the matter — the first time it had done so in decades. The office receives about 30,000 requests per year.
Epley said Paul should have been denied the documents, since the open records law has a clear exception for law enforcement matters, yet Paxton pushed for its release.
According to Epley, Paxton obtained his own copy of the documents and directed an aide to hand-deliver a manila envelope to Paul at his business. After that, Paul’s attorneys stopped asking for the FBI records.
Investigator Mark Donnelly also provided new information on Wednesday that an attorney of Paul’s had recommended that Paxton’s office hire a young and inexperienced lawyer named Brandon Cammack as outside counsel to help Paxton investigate the federal officials looking into Paul. That could have been a conflict of interest, as Paul was the one who had requested the investigation in the first place.
Donnolly did not name the attorney who referred Cammack, but Hearst Newspapers has reported on the strange relationship between Cammack and an attorney who represented Paul, Michael Wynne.
Paul, who is in the middle of multiple bankruptcy proceedings and financial litigation, had wanted the attorney general’s office to uncover details about the federal law investigation into him and his businesses.
Paxton hired Cammack as a “special prosecutor” against the advice of his staff, according to the investigators. They said Cammack was able to use the unredacted FBI report from Paxton to pinpoint the targets of 39 subpoenas, which went to Paul’s business interests and law enforcement officials.
You know, this stuff has been out there for a long time. And for a long time, it’s largely been ignored despite the voluminous record. In the same way that there’s basically no such thing as an anti-Trump Republican any more, because they’ve either been corrupted or they’ve left the Republican Party, at least up until now there’s been no such thing as an anti-Ken Paxton Republican in Texas. Mad respect to the three Republicans on this committee and their investigators, and to the whistleblowers before them, but there have been multiple opportunities before now to deal with the Paxton problem. Even if the Lege ultimately moves forward with impeachment, which by the way will require at least eight of Dan Patrick’s hand-puppet GOP Senators to turn on Paxton, he’s gotten away with this shit – and done a ton of damage while doing so – for way too long. Better late than never and all that, but boy howdy is this late.
I will close with three tweets of interest.
Impeachment of Paxton& Senate trial near certainty after exhaustive testimony. Would not be delayed by sine die. House & Senate can call themselves back in if Governor does not.Does Paxton leave gracefully?Speculation already turns to new AG to be appointed by @GregAbbott_TX
— harvey kronberg (@HKronberg) 11:28 AM – 24 May 2023
Texas AG Paxton’s supporters may try to argue the information in today’s hearing is old news. But the reason it’s being litigated in a legislative proceeding now is because Paxton has blocked much of it from being litigated in court for a decade #txlege
— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) 10:21 AM – 24 May 2023
Alas now students won’t be able to read my thriller about a state Senator who puts up with being cuckolded by her cheating husband, who happens to be the state attorney general, in exchange for a donor buying her new kitchen counters
— Evan (@evan7257) 12:17 PM – 24 May 2023
I’ve already pre-ordered that book for my Kindle. Texas Public Radio, the Associated Press, Reform Austin, and TPM have more.
You were right when you blogged that the Lege shouldn’t fund Paxton’s $3.3 million hush money payment to the whistleblowers. It’d be sweet if the House investigation into funding that settlement brings his downfall (still a big if).
This TX Lege clown car gets fuller every day…
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/texas-ag-calls-resignation-obviously-205922067.html
Apart from the crooked behavior on display (no surprise) one of the things that drives me nuts is how folks in these articles refer to him as “General Paxton”. He’s an attorney, his title is Attorney General, and that’s because “general” modifies “attorney”. He is not entitled to military rank, and whether that’s Paxton or some dumb custom that preceded Paxton, people need to stop saying “General Paxton”.
English, mofos, do you speak it?
Amen, Ginger.
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