Paxton must resign
Burdened by legal and ethical challenges, the disgraced AG cannot focus on Texas’ business.
Back when Gov. Greg Abbott was attorney general, he liked to joke that his primary mission each day was to make life difficult for President Barack Obama. “I go into the office in the morning. I sue Barack Obama and then I go home,” Abbott remarked more than once.
For Ken Paxton, Abbott’s two- term successor as the state’s top law- enforcement official, finding time to sue anybody must be a challenge. Weighed down for years with legal and ethical challenges of his own, Paxton is like a man who took a shortcut through a feed lot during a rainstorm and emerged teetering on boots stilted with, er, muck. Lots of muck.
A public official so burdened cannot focus on the people’s business. An attorney general cannot be trusted to enforce the law when he can’t be trusted to follow it. Ken Paxton needs to go. Now. And Gov. Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other top Republicans need to show some leadership and call for him to step down before he does any more damage to the credibility of his office, and of this state.
Like Pig- Pen, the messy little guy in the comic strip Peanuts, Paxton has attracted a murky cloud since before he was elected attorney general in 2014. Not long after being sworn into office, he was indicted on three counts, including two charges of felony securities fraud. He allegedly persuaded investors to buy stock in a company without revealing to them that he was making a commission on the deal. He also was accused of failing to register with the Texas State Securities Board, which resulted in a reprimand and $1,000 fine.
More than five years after the indictments came down, Paxton continues to employ various legal maneuverings and high- priced lawyers funded by wealthy donors and “family friends” to stay out of court — as a defendant, that is. The indictments, critics have joked, are now old enough to attend school.
And still the muck piles up. In early October, seven top attorneys in the AG’s office, including five deputy attorneys general and Paxton’s first assistant AG, signed a whistleblower complaint against their boss. Their complaint was based on what they considered an unseemly connection between Paxton and a top campaign donor, an Austin- based real estate developer named Nate Paul. As the Chronicle has reported, Paxton’s aides are alleging that the attorney general inappropriately appointed a special prosecutor to find out why federal authorities were investigating Paul, who donated $ 25,000 to Paxton’s 2018 re- election campaign.
The Chronicle also found that the attorney general was just a phone call away when Paul was trying to fight off at least one other legal challenge involving his complex web of businesses. Apparently, Paxton’s decision to hire the special prosecutor was the final straw for Paxton’s senior staff.
We are hard- pressed to recall any elected official, ever, who lost seven top aides en masse as a result of alleged legal and ethical improprieties. One of Paxton’s predecessors as attorney general also found it extraordinary. “It is pretty dramatic when his senior staff walk out and basically file a complaint against him. That’s really unprecedented,” U. S. Sen. John Cornyn told an Austin TV station recently.
The muck piles higher. The Associated Press reported last week that Paxton is now under investigation by the FBI, which is probing his staff ’s allegations of bribery, abuse of office and other crimes.
The Dallas Morning News reported recently that two sources told the newspaper that Paxton has admitted to them he had an affair with a former legislative aide whom Paul had since hired on Paxton’s recommendation. Paxton is married to state Sen. Angela Paxton.
We should point out that Paxton has not been convicted of anything, nor has the affair been independently confirmed. But the hovering cloud is not only distracting, it’s a disgrace to Texas. U. S. Rep. Chip Roy, just off a reelection victory over his Democratic challenger Wendy Davis, put it this way in a statement released last month: “The work of the Office of the Attorney General of Texas is too critical to the state and her people to leave in chaos and to risk the work of over 700 lawyers managing almost 30,000 legal cases at any given moment, including major cases before the U. S. Supreme Court, as well as processing over $ 4 billion in child support.”
In calling on Paxton to resign, Roy is keenly aware of what the job of attorney general entails. Before being elected to Congress, he was Paxton’s top aide.
The people of Texas deserve an attorney general who is above reproach, an attorney general who’s focused on the job they elected him to do, regardless of party. Ken Paxton does not fit that bill. Not even close.