Still a crook any way you look
Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office wants the Texas Supreme Court to throw out a State Bar ethics complaint against him — two weeks after the court dismissed a similar complaint against his assistant attorney general.
Seven out of the nine justices ruled Dec. 31 that First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster could not be disciplined for allegedly making false claims about the 2020 presidential election results in a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Solicitor General Aaron L. Nielson wrote in a letter to the high court Monday that because the commission’s complaint against Paxton was closely related to the complaint against Webster, Paxton’s suit should also be dismissed.
“The Commission’s petition against the Attorney General in this case is based on the same legal theories and underlying facts as—and therefore materially identical to—the one filed against the First Assistant in Webster,” Nielson wrote.
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The Bar’s disciplinary arm, the Commission for Lawyer Discipline, alleged Paxton misrepresented facts of the election with claims unsupported by evidence. The commission accused Paxton of professional misconduct, which violates the bar’s rules. The Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas upheld the State Bar’s suit.
In Webster’s case, the Texas Supreme Court ruled the Commission for Lawyer Discipline took it upon itself to attempt to discipline Webster when the U.S. Supreme Court — the court that heard the election lawsuit — did not and didn’t ask the commission to do so. It also intrudes upon the attorney general’s constitutional authority to both file petitions in court and assess the propriety of the claims he makes, the justices ruled.
At the time, Paxton called the State Bar’s complaints against himself and Webster “baseless” and “political retaliation.”
“The Texas State Bar attempted to punish us for fighting to secure our national elections but we did not and will not ever back down from doing what is right,” Paxton said in a statement.
In his letter, Nielson wrote the Fifth Court of Appeals “committed all of the same errors” in reviewing the case as the Eighth Court of Appeals in El Paso did in Webster’s case — hence why Paxton’s suit should be dismissed.
The dissenting justices — Justice Jeff Boyd and Justice Debra Lehrmann — said in their opinion in Webster’s case that the majority’s opinion showed “disdain or distrust” for the commission’s ability to discipline lawyers.
See here for the Brent Webster update. The best I can come up with for why SCOTx would allow the lawsuit against Paxton to continue after giving Webster a free pass is that Paxton was the guy in charge, where the buck stops, and it’s different for that guy to lie and do fraud before a court than for some foot soldier. I don’t actually believe that, I’m quite certain that they’ll give him a lollipop and a pat on the head and send him on his way, but I made myself think up a possibly plausible rationale for them to do the right thing, and that’s what I’ve got. Accountability is for suckers. Start the clock on this one.