Last week I was a shocked as anyone to learn that the Texas House was doing an impeachment hearing of Attorney General Ken Paxton—with about 48 hours’ notice, at the tail end of the session when normally you’d see them gaveling down a vote every half minute to get through those agreed upon things. (Honorary recognitions fit in that category, but also a number of significant bills that just need a floor vote before they’re ready to be sent to the governor for signature.)
What is going on?
%20Paxton%20response%205-26-2023.png) |
| Texas Attorney General Paxton holds a press conference in response to the call for his impeachment, screenshot from here. |
And then I tuned in for the impeachment hearing on Saturday,
which took a total of four hours, during which there was no witness testimony,
no evidence presented, just House members speaking on one side or the other, followed
by an up or down vote on the recommendation of the House General Investigating Committee. And, unlike a US presidential impeachment, the House impeachment
would suspend the officeholder until the completion of a trial in the Senate.
Instant ouster, albeit not yet permanent.
Word as of this morning is that the Senate will take up the
trial August 28. That will be at best three months of AG Paxton being unable to do what he was
in the middle of doing, which we should probably consider. Governor Abbott has
appointed former Secretary of State John Scott to fill the role in the interim;
I do not know anything about Scott.
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| tweet from Jill Glover SREC committeewoman from SD 12 |
Among those lonely 23 were two new representatives that I knew as grassroots conservatives for years before they even considered running: Mark Dorazio of San Antonio and Teri Leo-Wilson of Galveston. If they voted Nay, I trust they had good reason. And maybe I was right about what I was seeing.
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| vote board in the Texas House on Paxton impeachment image passed along from a friend |
I have a gut-level reaction to what has happened, in step with many friends but not everyone. So that was followed by questions about whether I knew enough to make that judgment. So, in the week since, I have tried to do some due diligence, such as it is, which I’m sharing below in what is, I’m sorry to say, much too long for one post (or four), but here it is anyway. And my due diligence and consideration may in fact be more than most of those who voted to impeach on Saturday bothered to do.
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| the roll call vote on impeachment, May 27, 2023 image passed along to me, from Texas Legislature Online |
SOURCES
If you’d like to get the basic facts for yourself, I suggest
starting with the following:
·
Committee hearing (4 hours) here. (The video is actually only
three hours of report, followed by a full hour of a still shot of the room
while the committee met privately in executive session. Supposedly the
committee began investigation into a possible Paxton impeachment in February,
but I can only find these 4 hours related to it, from May 24. There are two
other brief videos of this committee, May 23 and 25; no other video record of
this committee is provided. See full House video list here.)
·
House Floor debate (4 hours) here.
·
There are 20 counts: here.
·
The OAG put together a very long (374-page) response to
allegations, here.
·
The OAG hired an independent group of lawyers to
investigate; their report is here.
COMMITTEE BACKGROUND
Texas House General Investigating Committee
image from Texas Legislature Online
image from Texas Legislature Online
Here’s the basic background. There were several employees of
the Office of Attorney General who were fired in late 2020. They filed
whistleblower complaints and claim that their firing was motivated by their
complaints. There was a lawsuit involving four of them, which was being settled
for $3.3 million dollars, for which the OAG requested state funding.
It is neither unusual nor improper for a state office to
require state funding for defense or legal payment regarding suits against a
sitting elected official related to his duties in office. That is to protect
such officeholders from lawsuit abuse and threat in the course of their work. $3.3
million sounds like a lot of money, and to most of us it is. But it is likely
considerably less than yet more ongoing legal defense costs, and is not a great
deal more than the wages would have been for four high-level officials in the OAG
for the two years since their firing.
It was the request for that $3.3 million that triggered the
investigation by the House Investigative Committee, which was convened in
February.
In mid-March the Committee hired several lawyers to investigate
the allegations of the whistleblowers. They carried out that assignment and made
their three-hour oral report on Wednesday, May 24. The Committee then deliberated
for one hour and made the recommendation for impeachment to happen on Saturday,
May 27.
The Committee did not hear from anyone other than the hired investigators. They did not call for testimony from any first-hand witnesses. Nor were witnesses under oath when interviewed by the investigation team. Nor did they allow as evidence anything from either the OAG (although their long report is referenced by the investigators) or from the independent investigative report, I’ll refer to as the Brisbois report (the name of one of the lawyers of the firm).
The Saturday hearing did not hear either from the
investigators or any witnesses. They had floor discussion, as with any other
bill, which included hearing from Committee members and other House members who
asked to weigh in.
Committee Chairman Murr claimed, during Saturday’s floor debate, that they (the Committee) had been working on this investigation since February, and that the Attorney General could have testified or submitted evidence at any time. That isn’t exactly true. The Committee, as most other House committees, was formed in February, a month after start of session. The Committee assigned the investigation team in mid-March. The investigation team did not interview AG Paxton, nor any others accused of being involved in wrongdoing; they interviewed the whistleblowers and combed through their paperwork. Looking at this now, I wonder if they were avoiding alerting the OAG of their investigation and possible intention to impeach.
%20Chairman%20Murr.png) |
| Committee Chairman Murr during Saturday's impeachment debate screenshot from here |
The Committee was not open about the investigation. Most
House members first learned of the investigation by the Committee when the
Committee announced their recommendation to hold the impeachment hearing—with 48
hours’ notice. The Committee had not asked for testimony or information from
the OAG, nor from Ken Paxton himself. There must have been some awareness,
however, because we were told on Saturday that the OAG had sent someone to
present the findings of the independent law firm’s investigation (the Brisbois
report), but the Committee had refused it; this happened I believe on
Wednesday, the day of the hearing.
So, the House had the three-hour report to go by—and nothing
else but their gut instincts about the guilt or innocence of the duly re-elected
Attorney General (that is, re-elected for a third term, after the accusations
of the whistleblowers were public for two years).
There’s another timing detail we probably ought to add. House Speaker Dade Phelan was drunk during floor debates and votes; video of him slurring his words and appearing either drunk or having a stroke went viral the week before. (Info for non-Texans: his name is pronounced Fee-lin; and I have heard him speak as fast and crisp as an auctioneer in a hurried close of session in the past. He really was drunk in the video.) AG Ken Paxton called him out for it and asked for him to step down. This happened Tuesday, May 23 (a tweet shows 2:53 PM). Paxton followed with a letter to the General Investigative Committee—the one investigating Paxton that no one knew about yet—to open an investigation into Phelan’s drunkenness, a violation of ethics and appropriate behavior that embarrasses the state.
%20Dade%20Phelan%20drunk.png) |
| video of House Speaker Dade Phelan drunk on duty screenshot from here |
This is the day before the Committee hearing on Paxton,
which Chairman Murr claims was scheduled for that date as of the previous
Friday. I can’t verify that after the fact, but since the investigation team presumably
had to travel in to give their report, that could be true.
The question is, could Paxton’s call for Phelan to step down
be related to the upcoming report on the investigation into him, to deflect? Or
could the way the investigation suddenly showed up and quickly turned into an
impeachment be a retaliation for calling for Phelan to step down? Or both? Or neither?
I don’t think I can answer that here, but it’s worth noting that there’s a lot
going on behind scenes that we’re not privy to.
What we can and ought to know, then, is what was reported to
the Committee by the investigation team, and what was reported by the Brisbois
investigation. (I didn’t yet read through the long OAG report, but a fair trial
ought to include that as well; I hope the Senate does that.)
INVESTIGATION TEAM REPORT
%20Investigative%20Committee%20hearing.png) |
| Texas House General Investigating Committee hearing May 24, 2023 screenshot from here |
Five lawyers (I believe that was the number) were hired by
the House General Investigating Committee, around March 14, 2023, to follow the
accusations of the whistleblowers and make a report. As I said, it is unclear
whether most (or rather, it’s unlikely that most) or any of the voting House
members watched the video report to the Committee in its entirety, or perhaps
read the transcript (I don’t know where that would be) or a written report
provided by the investigators (if there was a written report, I also don’t know
where that would be).
The investigation team lawyers have strong credentials. I
don’t have any knowledge of any of them to distrust them. But, then, there are
a whole lot of people involved in this that I didn’t know I had reason to
distrust, so there may be plenty of reasons that I’m unaware of.
Twenty counts is a lot. They can be categorized, or grouped.
·
1-6, 8, 18 are Disregard of Public Duty,
dereliction of duty
·
7, 17
misapplication of funds or resources
·
9-10
bribery
·
11-12 obstruction
of justice
·
13-15 false statements in official records
·
16
conspiracy and attempted conspiracy
·
19-20
unfit for office, abuse of public trust
There’s a rhetorical technique, sometimes called the
Galloping Gish (or Gish Gallop, if you prefer). You pile on a lot of things,
all at once, each of which could be dismissed, with enough time and effort, but
the idea is to overwhelm the opponent with so much that they think, among all
this wrongdoing, there must be some truth to the fact the guy is guilty. When
you make it an impeachable offense (conspiracy) to defend yourself against the
other allegations, I think there might be more counts than necessary. Piling on
in a Galloping Gish is what this looks like to me.
There was a securities case, brought in 2015, regarding
behavior in 2009 or earlier, if I’m getting that right. The case will be eight
years old in July. Every civil litigation regarding the same accusations was
long ago dismissed. Yet this case still hasn’t been brought to court. The
investigation team pointed out that this meant the defense team never had to go
through discovery. They fail to mention that the prosecution hasn't had to go
through discovery and actually present their case either.
It seems to me a trivial matter. I may be missing details,
but it appears that Paxton was asked by clients for recommendations about a
securities investment company. Paxton recommended someone he knows and was
associated with—but failed to mention that he got a payment for recommending
them. The clients were fully satisfied with the recommendation. They did not
complain about any lack of disclosure; someone else trying to take him down did
that.
This doesn’t have very much to do with the whistleblower
complaints. This suit was there well before Paxton ran for AG, and any
employees knew about it when they agreed to work for him. The investigation
team report detailed it nevertheless.
Many of the complaints come from anything associated with a
real estate developer named Nate Paul. He made a one-time campaign donation of
$25,000 to the Paxton campaign, for his first election to AG I believe. It was
reported according to law, no illegality there. While it is sizable, the man is extremely wealthy,
and that isn’t a huge donation for a man of his budget. He was a friend of
Paxton’s prior to and after the donation and election.
There seems to be an attempt to tie the donation to Paxton’s
actions that may favor Nate Paul. One of the ones they bring up twice relates
to the renovation of Paxton’s house. There was water damage. The Paxtons
decided to do a full renovation, rather than simply repair. The investigation
team report seems hung up on the fact that Paxton asked for an upgrade on the
countertops, to granite; they bring it up twice. This is in a day when any high-end
home probably already has granite countertops; they are de rigueur.
Someone who talked with the investigation team overheard a conversation between
Paxton and the contractor, asking for the upgrade. The contractor said it would
be an additional $20,000. Paxton said to go ahead. The contractor said OK, he’d
talk to Nate about it.
The assumption was made, I presume, by the person
overhearing, that Nate Paul was doing the house renovation as a gift to Paxton
in exchange for possible favors. But the Paxtons have the receipts to show that
they paid for all the work. It may have been Nate Paul’s company that did it.
That would be logical for a person to hire a good friend who does that kind of
work. There is nothing to this allegation whatsoever, and yet
it occupies a chunk of the investigation team report.
Of course, there’s more. We’ll start with the peripheral
one. The claim is that Ken Paxton was having an affair with a woman, and that
he asked Nate Paul to give her a job, as a favor to him.
Paxton has said that the whistleblower allegations are all
false, innuendo, and gossip. He and his wife remain married (she is a state
senator and will thus be on the jury for his trial in the fall). She is
independent and powerful in her own right, so why would she stay with a man
having an affair?
The media speak of the affair openly, as if it is a known
fact. I find this troubling. The one time I met Ken Paxton was at a Tea Party
meeting. I’m trying to remember when. I think it was from his 2014 campaign. He
convinced me that he was a constitutional conservative, and that was based on
his strong Christian worldview. A person willing to break a marriage covenant,
it seems to me, would have even less trouble breaking the covenant of the
Constitution.
Nevertheless, recommending someone you know for a job at a
friend’s place of business seems both normal and legal. The inference is that
these behaviors only happen because of corrupt reasons. But there doesn’t
appear to be any related illegality. No one knows what position the alleged
woman was given nor what she might have been paid, nor did they seem concerned with whether the unknown woman could have been hired because she was capable of doing a particular job.
The investigation team report does claim that there are
actions Paxton took that benefited Nate Paul. One of them relates to a search
warrant at Nate Paul’s property/offices. Paul’s lawyers were given the list of
items to be sought, the brief warrant. But when his lawyers asked for the full
search warrant, to know what their client was being accused of, they were
refused and got only a heavily redacted version.
The investigation team explained that this is standard; they
don’t want the accused to know ahead of time what they’re being accused of,
because they could tamper with or hide relevant evidence.
One thing they mention is a conversation about this rather
heavy-handed search, and Paxton sympathized, saying he’d suffered that kind of
treatment as well, and he didn’t want to go out of his way to help out the FBI.
The investigation team—emphasized by the Committee—seemed shocked, shocked!
that the top law enforcement officer of the state wasn’t 100% behind a law enforcement body.
However, in this day of SWAT raids on innocent and harmless citizens—including a former US President—some of us might be fully behind Paxton on those sentiments.
Anyway, related to the warrant, Paxton asked for and obtained
the unredacted warrant and held it in his office for several days before
returning it. Meanwhile, there was a jurisdictional change made such that Paul’s
lawyers could seek again to get the unredacted information they sought.
But someone reporting to the investigation team saw that,
around this time, Paxton had a staffer hand-deliver a manilla envelope of unknown
contents to Nate Paul at Paul’s office.
Paul’s lawyers didn’t seek the unredacted information again.
The investigative team assumes it is because they already had the information
they needed, because Paxton had illegally given it to Paul in the manilla
envelope.
Paxton is being impeached because he handed a manilla
envelope to a person.
There was, however, another item related to Nate Paul. He
believed his documents had been tampered with. He turned them in for examination.
Whoever handled that in the OAG found no evidence of tampering. Also, the
whistleblowers claimed that Paul didn’t provide the documents in question. Both,
it seems to me, can’t be true.
Paxton asked about it. He asked for a list of documents the
OAG lawyers wanted Paul to provide. This was considered interference by the
whistleblowers.
I think it was related to this that Paxton hired a lawyer to
look further into this matter. The lawyer, the investigation team made a big
note of saying, had only five years’ experience and wasn’t a prosecutor, so
Paxton had no business hiring him—although they admitted the AG has the legal
right to hire who he wants, whether he goes through the official review protocol
or not.
I’m surmising here, but it could be that Paxton had lost
trust in the staff who was handling these issues. He was aware of them because
he was friends with Nate Paul, but the trust issue would go beyond that. So,
what may look like giving preferential treatment to a friend could be dealing
with corruption in his office. Or maybe the friend was getting preferential
treatment—but unless he was getting illegal help, that still isn’t necessarily an
impeachable offense.
Note that the investigation team did not think it worth
their time to interview Nate Paul or his associates related to any of the
questions involving him. And the paperwork they went through was provided by
the whistleblowers, who were of course not providing anything exculpatory.
BRISBOIS REPORT
%20Brisbois%20report%20page.png) |
| a page from the Brisbois report |
Let’s look at the other side now.
The Brisbois report lets us know that there was full
authority to fire at will by the AG, and political appointees are not subject
to whistleblower protection, only public employees. The Brisbois report
concludes:
First Assistant Webster has identified, and the objective
evidence we have been able to review supports, that each Complainant who was
fired was fired based upon that individual Complainant’s poor work performance
and, in some cases, clear insubordination.
We’ll take a look at a few examples. There was the former
First Assistant Penley. He had warned AG Paxton against doing anything related
to any Nate Paul case. And he was very offended that his boss did not do as
Penley ordered, and particularly about the hiring of the lawyer, Cammack. So he
acted in direct opposition to the AG.
According to the Brisbois report:
After Mr. Penley released incorrect information as part of
his official duties at OAG, the Attorney General wished to place Mr. Penley on
administrative leave. As mentioned in the OAG Report, OAG found that Mr. Penley
misled:
·
Don Clemmer to obtain copies of secret grand
jury subpoenas for the unlawful purpose of providing those subpoenas to a third
party, namely Johnny Sutton[i].
·
The 460th Criminal District Court Judge, in a
court filing, by not disclosing that Penley had within his possession a signed
contract between AG Paxton and Cammack that designated Cammack as OAG’s outside
counsel. See, e.g., OAG Report at 2.
In addition, after removing the Attorney General’s name from
the OAG Seal on OAG letterhead, Mr. Penley sent an unauthorized cease-and-desist
letter to Brandon Cammack on September 30, 2020, in violation of direct orders
from the Attorney General. This is referred to as the “Penley Letter” in the
OAG’s Report. See OAG Report, Ex. 19.
Yeah, the whistleblower was worried about Paxton's “impeachable
offenses,” but didn’t see anything wrong with forging documents and lying in
direct opposition to his boss.
This next is about a person named Vassar, in relation to trying
to get grants that I believe were used to pay for certain OAG staff. Vassar was
saying the OAG could not get grants because of the longstanding prosecution filed
against AG Paxton in 2015—although that longstanding case was not a hindrance
in past years, the whole first term, and the second term up to that point. The Brisbois
report says this:
During Lewis Brisbois’s interview of Mr. Kinghorn, Mr.
Kinghorn reported his belief that Mr. Vassar had raised this issue in an effort
to obtain leverage as part of an effort to force the Attorney General to
resign. Mr. Kinghorn’s opinion is buttressed by the fact that Mr. Vassar had
approved many of the very same and similar grant applications for several years
without expressing any concern.
It seems more likely that Vassar was trying to find a way to
get rid of AG Paxton, rather than do the work he was assigned. That might
warrant firing.
A third person was a Ms. Mase, who was being fired for abusive
behavior toward her subordinates. She was fired right after her meeting with
the FBI. She claims the firing was retaliation for her whistleblowing. However,
no one in the OAG was aware of her meeting with the FBI, so it couldn’t be retaliatory.
The Brisbois report says:
In an interview Mr. De La Garza stated that Mr. De La Garza
believes Ms. Mase knew she was going to be dismissed from OAG, and so Ms. Mase
likely timed her meeting with the FBI to provide the appearance of a connection
between that meeting and Ms. Mase firing. There appears to be no evidence to
indicate that any individuals at OAG, including First Assistant Webster, knew
beforehand that Ms. Mase intended to meet with government authorities on
October 20, 2020, shortly before the First Assistant carried out the prior
decision to fire Ms. Mase. If First Assistant Webster and others did not know
about this meeting, they could not have retaliated against Ms. Mase for
attending it.
More on Mase:
Given Ms. Mase’s insistence on knowing all interactions
between Mr. Simpson and the First Assistant, Ms. Mase’s knowledge of OAG
placing Mr. Vassar on investigative leave, and the above-mentioned email from
First Assistant Webster on October 19, 2020, it seems likely Ms. Mase surmised
she would soon be fired or placed on investigative leave. As such, the timing
of Ms. Mase’s meeting with federal authorities seems more likely to be an
effort to obtain the “job insurance” Ms. Mase has discussed with Mr. De La
Garza in light of Ms. Mase’s reasonable perception of the OAG’s pending
decision to fire Ms. Mase.
Rather than merely dismissing employees, AG Paxton seemed
more likely to put them on paid investigative leave, or to move them to a
different department—no loss in pay. It may be that he was too soft on certain
people who were intent on doing harm to his reputation and his ability to do
his job.
The paper trail shows that all the firing offenses were documented
and in process of investigation well before any whistleblowers claimed that
status or made their reports. So we’re starting with a rather major lie on
their part.
CONCLUSION
It could be that the whistleblowers are right, and that the
AG is wildly corrupt.
Or it could be that the whistleblowers are among a rather
large number of establishment Republicans who don’t want AG Paxton to do what
he’s been doing. And there’s a sizable list—things that grassroots Americans
approve of, but that elites do not. Some of these actions show up in the list of
resources below.
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| Republican Party of Texas Chair Matt Rinaldi's statement |
There are plenty of people who have written responses to
this impeachment. There are also some theories about the reasons. I’ll list a
few below, rather than going through those arguments in addition to what is
already too long a piece.
To summarize, my personal belief is that the impeachment was
unjust. I hope that the Senate trial will bring out all the facts and reveal
the corruption wherever it lies. The voters in the state deserve that.
MORE BACKGROUND RESOURCES
·
“ANALYSIS: Crony Establishment Will Veto Your Vote” by Michael Quinn Sullivan for Texas Scorecard, May 30, 2023.
·
“Texas AG Ken Paxton Take-Down – Why Now?” by
Devvy Kidd, May 31, 2023.
·
“Dade Phelan Targets Trump’s Top Lawyer With Illegal Impeachment” by Cary Cheshire for Texas Scorecard, May 26, 2023.
·
“FEUD: SPEAKER OF TX HOUSE DADE PHELAN VS. TAGKEN PAXTON” by Donna Garner, May 25, 2023. This piece lists a large number of
cases AG Paxton has been involved in, which probably explains his popularity
with the voters but not the elites.
·
“Paxton Launches Investigation into Gain-of-Function Research and Misrepresentations by Covid-19 Vaccine Manufacturers” official OAG press release May 1, 2023.
·
“Paxton Announces Second Investigation into Texas Hospital for Potentially Unlawfully Performing 'Gender Transitioning' Procedures” official OAG press release May 19, 2023.
·
“Texas AG Ken Paxton’s COVID-19 vaccine investigation could stick it to Big Pharma execs” by Miranda Devine for the New
York Post, April 30, 2023.
·
Rep. Schaeffer’s response to the impeachment,
May 26, 2023, within an email from Grassroots for America.
·
“Texas Legislature has a WHORE HOUSE in it...Everything you might want to know about the Texas Coup” BIZPAC email (I
don’t know if it originated with them; I saw it passed on from friends before I
received it from BIZPAC).
·
“Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan’s Popularity Plummets Following Lackluster Session” by Brandon Waltens for Texas Scorecard,
May 29, 2023.
·
“A Time for Choosing in Texas” by Wallace Hall Jr,
for Texas Scorecard, June 1, 2023.
·
“WATCH: Texas AG Ken Paxton Holds Press Conference in Response to House RINOs’ “Deceitful Impeachment Attempt” – He Was Railroaded – Urges Supporters to “Petition Your Government” TOMORROW AT 1 PM” by
Jordan Conradson for Gateway Pundit, May 26, 2023.
[i] Johnny
Sutton is the attorney famous (or infamous) for prosecuting two border guards “for
using a gun in carrying out a crime” when they shot an illegal intruder at the
border. Their long sentence was commuted after a couple of years.
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