Here’s why the entire U.S. will be watching Texas and Paxton’s trial
Even in the age of political tribalism, elected officials can still surprise us.
Just when the Republican Party seems to have lost its moral compass, it was found recently by Texas’ GOP-dominated House. A solid majority voted to impeach Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton for going further than their consciences could abide.
Nationally, the party of Reagan seems to have misplaced its priorities, especially on national security. Too many Republican leaders seem to have gone “Donald Trump, right or wrong,” however unprotected he may have left our troops by showing our highly classified military plans to unauthorized individuals.
Traditional American conservatism is rolling over in its grave. Even as Trump erroneously insists that he had every right to box up and haul to Mar-a-Lago documents containing some of the country’s most sensitive national security secrets, one national Republican leader after another has claimed to see, hear and speak no evil.
Texas, on the other hand, has sent its message on Paxton loud and clear. By impeaching him on bribery and corruption charges, the state House said, “We’ve had it with this guy.” Even Trump’s call to back Paxton fell on deaf ears among the Texas House majority (though not on those of Sen. Ted Cruz).
The House vote was 121-23, not exactly impeachment-by-ahair.
The Texas Senate has set a Sept. 5 trial date. Two-thirds of the Senate, 21 votes, are required to convict. Sen. Angela Paxton, Paxton’s wife, is not eligible to vote; the 30 remaining state senators are.
Twelve of the senators are Democrats. Paxton will likely have to introduce a lot of “reasonable doubt” to convince even one or two of them. It may not be hard to find half of the 20 Republican senators to vote for conviction, if the nearly 3-to-1 House Republican vote for impeachment is any indication.
To understand how politicians vote, it’s always useful to look for the human element. Here, there’s every appearance that Republicans grew sick and tired of Paxton’s arrogance when it came to taxpayers.
In February, Paxton asked the House to approve a $3.3 million settlement of a whistleblower lawsuit against him, brought by his own employees who had reported his alleged corruption to the FBI. When he went to the state House for taxpayer money to settle the claims, legislators reportedly had enough.
Paxton asked legislators to have Texans pay for his own apparent breach of public employment contracts. In a state where business is king, fidelity to contracts is the throne on which commerce sits. You just don’t bail out an attorney general responsible for enforcing the state’s contracting process when he is charged with undermining it.
It didn’t help that Paxton is alleged to have successfully solicited a wealthy donor and friend, Nate Paul, to hire Paxton’s mistress in exchange for the attorney general’s help as Paul tried to avoid an FBI investigation. The impeachment articles charge that misconduct as well. (Paul was ordered to jail in March for lying under oath and contempt of court.)
Beyond the state Legislature, let’s give credit where it’s due. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn called Paxton’s catalog of legal problems “an embarrassment.” Cornyn acted with similar integrity when he was asked about Trump’s June 9 federal indictment for obstructing a grand jury investigation and unlawfully retaining classified materials: “It’s not good,” Cornyn responded.
On the other hand, Sen.
Cruz said the indictment by 23 Floridians on the grand jury was based on alleged crimes too “ticky-tack” to warrant such a prosecution. Pardon the intelligence community for thinking it’s code red when a former president reportedly keeps top secret documents about our nuclear capabilities, Iran’s missile program or China in an insecure setting such as Mar-a-Lago .
Worse yet, Cruz and most other national Republican leaders act as if they could care less about an audio clip recently aired on CNN where Trump seems to show unauthorized individuals our military’s contingency war plans against Iran. Think about how revealing such documents to the wrong people could endanger our GIs if an attack ever became necessary.
That’s the national context for why, in the coming Senate impeachment trial of Ken Paxton, the eyes of Americans will be on Texas — especially centrist Americans looking for politicians who put principle above party. John Cornyn shouldn’t be the lone Texas Republican declaring a bit of independence from a former president, indicted for endangering our national security, who once again seeks the mantle of commander in chief.