In an unanimous decision, a Republican-led investigative committee that spent months quietly looking into Paxton recommended impeaching the state’s top lawyer.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC held at the Hilton Anatole on July 11, 2021 in Dallas, Texas. AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton teetered on the brink of impeachment Thursday after years of scandal, criminal charges and corruption accusations that the state’s Republican majority had largely met with silence for years until now.
that spent months quietly looking into Paxton recommended impeaching the state’s top lawyer. The state House of Representatives could vote on the recommendation as soon as Friday. If the House impeaches Paxton, he would be forced to leave office immediately. The move sets set up a remarkably sudden downfall for one of the GOP’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020. Only two other officials in Texas’ nearly 200-year history have been impeached. Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015,Unlike in Congress, impeachment in Texas requires immediate removal from office until a trial is held in the Senate. That means Paxton faces ouster at the hands of GOP lawmakers just seven months after easily winning a third term over challengers —— who had urged voters to reject a compromised incumbent but discovered that many didn’t know about Paxton’s litany of alleged misdeeds or dismissed the accusations as political attacks. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott could appoint an interim replacement. Paxton has suggested that the investigation that came to light to week is a politically motivated attack and said the Republican House leadership is too "liberal" for the state. Chris Hilton, a senior lawyer in the attorney general’s office, told reporters before Thursday’s committee vote that what investigators said about Paxton was "false," "misleading," and "full of errors big and small." He said all of the allegations were known to voters when they reelected him in November. Impeachment requires a two-thirds vote of the state’s 150-member House chamber, where Republicans hold a commanding 85-64 majority. In one sense, Paxton’s political peril arrived with dizzying speed: House Republicans did not reveal they had been investigating him until Tuesday, followed the next day by an extraordinary public airing of alleged criminal acts he committed as one of Texas’ most powerful figures. But to Paxton’s detractors, who now include a widening share of his own party in the Texas Capitol, the rebuke was seen as years in the making.In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law over not registering as an investment advisor while soliciting clients. A year later, Paxton was indicted on felony securities charges by a grand jury in his hometown near Dallas, where he was accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts that carry a potential sentence of five to 99 years in prison.
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