{"id":576353,"date":"2023-05-28T10:34:33","date_gmt":"2023-05-28T07:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/fight-still-ahead-for-texas-paxton-after-historic-impeachment\/"},"modified":"2023-05-28T10:34:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-28T07:34:33","slug":"fight-still-ahead-for-texas-paxton-after-historic-impeachment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/fight-still-ahead-for-texas-paxton-after-historic-impeachment\/","title":{"rendered":"#Fight still ahead for Texas’ Paxton after historic impeachment"},"content":{"rendered":"
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) \u2014 The historic impeachment of Texas Attorney General<\/a> Ken Paxton plunged Republicans on Sunday into a fight over whether to banish one of their own in America’s biggest red state after years of scandal and criminal accusations that will now be at the center of a trial in the state Senate.<\/p>\n

Paxton said he has \u201cfull confidence\u201d as he awaits judgement from the Senate, where his conservative allies include his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who has not said whether she will recuse herself from the proceedings to determine whether her husband will be permanently removed from office.<\/p>\n

For now, Texas’ three-term attorney general is immediately suspended<\/a> after the state House of Representatives on Saturday impeached Paxton on 20 articles that included bribery and abuse of public trust.<\/p>\n

The decisive 121-23 vote amounted to a clear rebuke from the GOP-controlled chamber after nearly a decade of Republican lawmakers taking a mostly muted stance on Paxton’s alleged misdeeds, which include felony securities fraud charges from 2015 and an ongoing FBI investigation into corruption accusations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He is just the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.<\/p>\n

“No one person should be above the law, least not the top law officer of the state of Texas,\u201d said Republican state Rep. David Spiller, who was part of a House investigative committee that this week revealed it had quietly been looking into Paxton for months.<\/p>\n

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has remained silent about Paxton all week , including after Saturday’s impeachment. Abbott, who was the state’s attorney general prior to Paxton’s taking the job in 2015, has the power to app<\/a>oint a temporary replacement pending the outcome in the Senate trial.<\/p>\n

It is not year clear when the Senate trial will take place. Final removal of Paxton would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Republican members are generally aligned with the party’s hard right. The Senate is led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has served as state chairman for former President Donald Trump’s campaigns in Texas.<\/p>\n

Before the vote Saturday, Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to Paxton\u2019s defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process \u201ca travesty\u201d and saying the attorney general\u2019s legal troubles should be left to the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cFree Ken Paxton,\u201d Trump wrote on his social media<\/a> platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with the impeachment, \u201cI will fight you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paxton, 60, decried the outcome in the House moments after scores of his fellow partisans voted for impeachment. His office pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just,\u201d Paxton said. “It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that Republican legislators had too little time to review evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI perceive it could be political weaponization,\u201d Rep. Tony Tinderholt, one of the House\u2019s most conservative members, said before the vote. Republican Rep. John Smithee compared the proceeding to “a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rice University political science<\/a> professor Mark P. Jones said the swift move to impeach kept Paxton from rallying significant support and allowed quietly frustrated Republicans to come together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you ask most Republicans privately, they feel Paxton is an embarrassment. But most were too afraid of the base to oppose him,\u201d Jones said. By voting as a large bloc, he added, the lawmakers gained political cover.<\/p>\n

To Paxton\u2019s longstanding detractors, however, the rebuke was years overdue.<\/p>\n

In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.<\/p>\n

He opened a legal defense fund and accepted $100,000<\/a> from an executive whose company was under investigation by Paxton\u2019s office for Medicaid fraud. An additional $50,000 was donated by an Arizona retiree whose son Paxton later hired to a high-ranking job<\/a> but soon was fired after displaying child pornography<\/a> in a meeting. In 2020, Paxton intervened in a Colorado mountain<\/a> community where a Texas donor and college classmate faced removal from his lakeside home under coronavirus orders.<\/p>\n

But what ultimately unleased the impeachment push was Paxton’s relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.<\/p>\n

In 2020, eight top aides told the FBI they were concerned Paxton was misusing his office<\/a> to help Paul over the developer’s unproven claims about an elaborate conspiracy to steal $200 million of his properties. The FBI searched Paul\u2019s home in 2019, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. Paxton also told staff members he had an affair with a woman<\/a> who, it later emerged, worked for Paul.<\/p>\n

The impeachment accuses Paxton of attempting to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul. The bribery charges included in the impeachment allege Paul employed the woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and that he paid for expensive renovations<\/a> to the attorney general’s home. A senior lawyer for Paxton\u2019s office, Chris Hilton, said Friday that the attorney general paid for all repairs and renovations.<\/p>\n

Other charges, including lying to investigators, date back to Paxton\u2019s still-pending securities fraud indictment.<\/p>\n

Four aides who reported Paxton to the FBI later sued under Texas\u2019 whistleblower law, and in February he agreed to settle the case for $3.3 million<\/a>. The House committee said the probe was sparked by Paxton seeking legislative approval for the payout.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for Paxton\u2019s own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment,\u201d the panel said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Bleiberg reported from Dallas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) \u2014 The historic impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton plunged Republicans on Sunday into a fight over whether to banish one of their own in America’s biggest red state after years of scandal and criminal accusations that will now be at the center of a trial in the state Senate. Paxton…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":576354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/idbmS1Vlsv4ZVAdkQe_t4A--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD04MDA-\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/ap.org\/f667b7ff594f5864e64da05938d6857b","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}