Keep ’em coming, y’all.
Best mugshot ever
Prosecutors in the criminal case against Attorney General Ken Paxton defended themselves in a court filing Tuesday, calling accusations of misconduct leveled by defense lawyers a gratuitous ploy to direct attention away from Paxton’s felony indictments.
“Paxton’s ploy, as any Google search of this case will readily reveal, is merely the latest in a series of unwarranted personal attacks leveled against the special prosecutors in the media by Paxton’s spokesmen, public relations operatives and political supporters,” prosecutors told state District Judge George Gallagher.
The filing was the prosecutors’ second response to a broad attack launched last week by Paxton’s lawyers, who argued in court filings that three felony securities law violations should be dismissed because, among other problems, prosecutors disclosed secret grand jury proceedings in interviews with reporters, supplying information designed to taint the pool of prospective jurors.
[…]
The secrecy of grand jury proceedings, prosecutors argued, does not create a blanket ban on commenting about grand jury actions. Legal ethics also allow prosecutors to discuss the general scope of investigations, they told the judge.
“Paxton’s sole reason for filing this pleading is to cast the special prosecutors as the bad guys in the court of public opinion,” the prosecutors wrote.
See here and here for the background, and here for a copy of this motion. I’m not sure what the purpose is of filing two separate responses like this, but the prosecution did maintain its rather dismissive tone towards Paxton’s motion. In this case, they began with a quote from Mad Men, and on page four cited the Merriam-Webster definition of the word “series” to dispute another of Team Paxton’s allegations. This may already be the greatest special prosecution of an incumbent Texas politician ever, and we’re still in pre-game warmups. I can’t wait to see what comes next. The Press has more.