Notes on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Sept. 5th Trial

State Attorney General Ken Paxton will appear before the Texas Senate on Tuesday, September 5, to respond to 16 of 20 articles of impeachment that were approved by the Lone Star State “kangaroo court,” or Texas House, in May. That vote suspended Paxton from his seat without pay.

This is the trial Texans must pay attention to, as the verdict will sway the fragile future of the state.

In May, a hung jury of Dade Phelan’s RINOs and Democrats voted to suspend AG Paxton and try him for impeachment, with charges including “bribery and abuse of public trust.”

Peculiarly, this occurred just days after Dade Phelan appeared drunk on the House floor, and Paxton called for his immediate resignation.

Phelan

Publicly, both former President Donald J. Trump and Republican Party of Texas chairman Matt Rinaldi were quick to call Phelan out.

“Speaker Dade Phelan and his leadership team have appointed Democrats to high ranking leadership positions, attacked the Republican Party of Texas, battled our conservative Lieutenant Governor, and killed Governor Abbott’s top priorities,” wrote Rinaldi.

Rinaldi

“The impeachment proceedings against the Attorney General are but the latest front in the Texas House’s war against Republicans to stop the conservative direction of our state.”

Even President Donald Trump called Phelan “another Mitch McConnell,” for siding with Democrats to reduce penalties for illegal voting.

Trump was one of the first of many conservatives to voice concern. In a Truth Social post he wrote “The RINO [Republican in name only] Speaker of the House of Texas, Dade Phelan, who is barely a Republican at all and failed the test on voter integrity, wants to impeach one of the most hard-working and effective Attorneys General in the United States, Ken Paxton, who just won re-election with a large number of American Patriots strongly voting for him.”

“You would think that any issue would have been fully adjudicated by the voters of Texas, especially when that vote was so conclusive….”

With the impeachment trial set to begin Sept. 5 in the Senate chamber, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick will serve as the presiding officer.

Although senators are required to serve as jurors, Paxton’s wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, is forbidden from participating in any conversation or vote.

One of two lawsuits, recently filed against defendants Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Texas Senate and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Austin Osborn, reveal the calculated corruption behind Sen. Angela Paxton’s removal from the impeachment trial.

What makes this even more concerning is that Senate Rule 31 violates the Fourteenth Amendment, the lawsuit alleges, because it bars Sen. Angela Paxton (R-McKinney) from voting in Gen. Paxton’s trial.

Other senators with ‘personal or private interests’ are free to vote, it continues, citing Article 15, Section 2, and Article 3, Section 22 of the Texas Constitution.

This lawsuit argued that every senator “presiding over General Paxton’s impeachment trial” already has bias or partiality for or against him by party affiliation alone.

The suit also states that “The Senate rules directly violate this fundamental constitutional principle,” of “one person, one vote,” by “fully disenfranchising all of the voters in the district of Sen. Angela Paxton.”

Last week, the prosecution and the defense team each filed witness lists, which have been kept private.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has ordered some of these witnesses to appear on the first day of the trial. Those who may be called to testify under oath, according to The Texas Tribune, include the following;

• Lt. Gov Dan Patrick, who is president of the Senate and the judge in the impeachment trial. Patrick may rule on pretrial motions or call senators to vote on pretrial matters, but “any motion to dismiss an article of impeachment must be approved by a majority of senators.”

• State Att. Gen. Ken Paxton, the accused three-term Republican seatholder who was impeached in May following “accusations of misconduct that include bribery, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice. Most articles of impeachment focus on alleged allegations, made by former top lieutenants, that Paxton used the attorney general’s office to benefit Paul, a friend and political donor.”

•12 House representatives, who will oversee the prosecution. Led by RINO Rep. Andrew Murr and Democratic Rep. Ann Johnson, the team also includes eleven other people, including Reps. Briscoe Cain, Charlie Geren, Cody Thane Vasult, David Spiller, Jeff Leach, Morgan Meyer, Erin Elizabeth Gámez, Joe Moody, Oscar Longoria and Terry Canales.

• House impeachment managers, including famous prosecutors Dick DeGuerin, Harriet O’Neill and Rusty Hardin.

•Paxton’s defense team, including defense lawyers Tony Buzbee and Dan Cogdell and legal counsel Lana Myers.

• Possible witnesses include Nate Paul, an Austin real estate investor “central to Paxton’s corruption allegations;” David Maxwell, a former director of law enforcement who was involved in the initial November 2020 lawsuit against Paxton and Blake Brickman, a former deputy attorney general for policy and strategy initiatives, who was also involved in this lawsuit.

• Other potential witnesses include Mark Penley, Ryan Vassar, Drew Wicker, Margaret Moore, Brandon Cammack, the Mitte Foundation, Jeff Mateer, Michael Wynne and Mindy Montford.

Big media’s leftist propaganda spins and state government politicians’ agenda-driven handling of Gen. Paxton do not reflect the views of the Texas population.

According to a new poll by The Texas Tribune, only 28% of Texan Republicans agreed that the charges against Texas’ attorney general were warranted.

Despite public bombardment with false narratives against AG Paxton, his approval rating remains at 46% among Republicans. Few R-voters believe that the Texas House was justified in impeaching him, according to this poll.

Gen. Paxton’s defense team argued once that Republican senators risked their political careers by voting to convict him. Yet a majority of Republicans in the House did vote in favor of his impeachment in May.

Many Texas House Republicans are notorious RINOs, betraying their own party, values, and constituents for power, money, and political gain.

Paxton, who has been suspended from office for the last several months, and his lawyers have argued that he should remain in office; voters, they pointed out, are already aware of the “questions surrounding his ethics,” yet have re-elected him twice, including last year, in 2022.

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