Paxton’s Ninth Life: Will the Senate Save Texas’ Embattled AG?

Part of our coverage of the impeachment of Ken Paxton.

After weeks of speculation, Republican state Senator Angela Paxton announced Monday what many had come to suspect—that she would not recuse herself as a de facto juror in the impeachment trial of her husband Attorney General Ken Paxton. “As a member of the Senate, I hold these obligations sacred and I will carry out my duties, not because it is easy, but because the Constitution demands it and because my constituents deserve it,” Senator Paxton said.

This news came amid growing suspicion that perhaps the attorney general, who was impeached by the state House last month, would find a political escape hatch in the Texas Senate. Besides his dubiously impartial spouse, other walking conflicts in the Capitol’s upper chamber include Senator Bryan Hughes, who is alleged to have served as a cutout in one aspect of Paxton’s corruption, and another member who once employed the AG’s former mistress. As of Tuesday afternoon, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick had said the rules of the coming impeachment trial will likely be made public sometime this week.   

These pre-trial machinations come on the heels of other developments that suggest Paxton’s impeachment saga, which came in a surprising fit of accountability by Texas Republicans, will quickly unveil the worst of the state’s ruling party too. At the least, political watchers are unlikely to be bored.

Earlier this month, in front of a backdrop of Republican Party of Texas logos at the state party headquarters in downtown Austin, the famously enigmatic Houston trial lawyer Tony Buzbee addressed a room full of TV cameras and reporters about his newest client: the freshly impeached Paxton.

One could be forgiven for dismissing the prior three weeks as a prolonged fever dream. The Texas House had voted to impeach a statewide officer for the first time since Governor James “Pa” Ferguson over a century earlier, delivering the sort of political and legal wallop that Paxton had been shrewdly ducking at the ballot box and from courts, prosecutors, judges, and the FBI for the past eight-plus years. 

Now Buzbee—with a Trumpian tan and a neon-pink tie—was counterpunching on Paxton’s behalf, railing against the Texas House’s sudden hearing and vote to approve 20 articles of impeachment—ranging from bribery to obstruction of justice—against the state’s long-imperiled top lawman, calling it a “kangaroo court.” 

“The speaker’s followers and himself thought that they could pull off what could only be described as a drive-by shooting on a holiday weekend,” Buzbee said. “Ken Paxton will never be convicted in the Senate.” 

News of the House’s investigation into Paxton broke in the final week of the regular legislative session after the attorney general—presumably upon learning of the inquiry himself—launched a preemptive attack against Speaker Dade Phelan, accusing him of legislating while drunk. 

The House General Investigating Committee had a team of investigators conducting a panoramic review of Paxton’s alleged lawbreaking and ethical improprieties, from his near-decade-old indictment for securities fraud to the more recent allegations that he was using his office as a personal concierge service for friend and embattled Austin real estate magnate Nate Paul. At Paxton’s request, Paul also gave a job to a woman with whom Paxton, a social conservative notably married to a sitting state senator, was having an affair. 

This all prompted several of Paxton’s top deputies in 2020 to drop a dime to the FBI, igniting a political firestorm in Texas and prompting an ongoing federal investigation. A handful of those deputies were summarily fired, prompting them to file a lawsuit alleging that the AG had violated state whistleblower protection laws. This came with new details about Paxton’s alleged corruption, including that he routinely used burner phones and that Ken and his senatorial spouse Angela’s house in Austin got an expensive remodel courtesy of Nate Paul. 

In typical fashion, Paxton fought to delay and defuse the lawsuit by appealing the case up to the Texas Supreme Court—on the grounds that the state whistleblower law didn’t apply to him because he was an elected official, not a government employee. Before the high court had the chance to make its ruling, a $3 million settlement was reached between the AG and his fired deputies. But the Legislature first had to approve funding for the payout, and lawmakers made clear they had no interest in doing so. 

That appeared to be the end of that. With Paxton arguing that the whistleblower case settlement could hang in perpetuity until the Lege approved funding for the settlement—in the next session or the one after—it looked like he might yet wriggle out of another tight corner.

But unbeknownst to almost everyone in the public and the Capitol, Paxton’s $3 million settlement request prompted a secret House investigation to dig through Paxton’s cemeterial closet. Perhaps more shocking than the fact itself is that, in the gossipy funhouse that is the Texas Capitol, this was kept under wraps. 

House investigators presented their findings to the committee, a broad accounting of Paxton’s alleged crimes and wrongdoings. Most of the material had already been covered by the press at one time or another, but there were some new allegations: that Paxton’s extramarital dalliance had not ended as finally as believed and that the AG got his paramour the job with Nate Paul so she could be close to him in Austin, that Paxton had his executive aide personally deliver a manila envelope of documents to Paul suspected to have contained unredacted records regarding the FBI’s investigation into the real estate mogul, and that Paxton was heard telling a contractor that his wife wanted an upgrade “to the granite countertops” in their kitchen, to which the contractor, citing a cost of $20,000, replied: “I’ll have to check with Nate.” 

Paxton and his defenders have not denied the factual thrust of the findings but rather sought to dismiss it as ancient history known to the public and litigated in high-profile primary and general election campaigns that Paxton handily won. His defense has largely focused on the quick-fire House impeachment process and the nature of the investigation. 

Except for the whole countertops thing. In what will surely go down as one of the greatest lines in the history of Texas politics, the AG’s chief of litigation Chris Hilton vied to correct the factual record at a press conference: “The Attorney General’s countertops are tile, not granite.” 

Weeks later, Buzbee returned to the matter, showing a picture of Paxtons’ kitchen and, zooming in on the countertops, asking, “Is that any sort of granite you’ve ever seen?” He also showed receipts for around $120,000 that Paxton paid for the renovations in an attempt to disprove the charge that Nate Paul had paid—though this only raised different questions since the name of the company on the wire transfer from Paxton was owned by a known business associate of Paul. 

In classic Texas fashion, the Paxton impeachment has become a showdown between the most high-powered legal titans in the state. The House has hired two of Houston’s storied defense attorneys, Rusty Hardin and Dick Deguerin. In their first pronouncements on the case, Hardin said the scope of Paxton’s corruption is “10 times worse than what has been public.”

Paxton’s political fate is now in the hands of the Texas Senate, where the ultra-conservative body will hold a trial and vote whether to convict. Conflicts abound there, with concerns about whether his wife will recuse herself. Patrick has said the Senate will draft the rules of the trial this summer and begin proceedings by late August. 

Unlike his other legal troubles, Paxton’s impeachment means that he is suspended from his powerful office until the Senate trial is over—while Governor Greg Abbott’s appointed replacement John Scott keeps his seat warm. 

Even with friends in Texas’ upper chamber, Paxton’s (allegedly) incessant criminality has left him in a deep hole—one that may yawn even wider in the weeks to come. Just a day after Buzbee’s press conference, Nate Paul was arrested in Austin and charged with eight counts of financial crimes. As the AG’s defense attorney told the Dallas Morning News, “You don’t have to be Nostradamus to assume that they’re going to try to flip Nate Paul to testify against Ken.”