One of the worst individuals alive is Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. He has built his own “little shop of horrors.” In Texas, the courts have been packed with right-wing activist judges, as has the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Paxton serves as lead counsel in the politically motivated lawsuits that national Republicans want filed in this pipeline of Texas courts packed with right-wing activist judges in order to get to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and eventually to the U.S. Supreme Court.
This is the corrupt “Texas pipeline” that has produced numerous Supreme Court cases, including the current legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act aka “Obamacare” seeking to invalidate the law in its entirety before the U.S. Supreme Court on November 10. If the Supreme Court rules in Paxton’s his favor, more than 20 million Americans will lose their ACA health coverage, and millions more Americans with preexisting conditions will once again be unable to obtain affordable health insurance. The American health insurance system will be blown up overnight, causing massive insurance market disruption.
It turns out that Paxton is even more corrupt than you might have imagined. Steve Benen explains, Texas AG, ‘Lawyers for Trump’ leader faces corruption allegations:
In late July, the Trump campaign announced the formation of a Lawyers for Trump group, to be led in part by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). By any fair measure, he was a curious choice.
Right off the bat, there was no getting around the fact that the Texas Republican is currently spearheading litigation to tear down the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. In other words, the co-chair of Lawyers for Trump is the same state A.G. who’s fighting to take health security from tens of millions of American families for no reason.
Over the weekend, Paxton became just a little more politically radioactive. The Austin American-Statesman reported Saturday:
Top aides of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have asked federal law enforcement authorities to investigate allegations of improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential crimes against the state’s top lawyer. In a one-page letter to the state agency’s director of human resources, obtained Saturday by the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV, seven executives in the upper tiers of the office said that they are seeking the investigation into Paxton “in his official capacity as the current Attorney General of Texas.”
The letter, written Thursday, added that each of the seven officials in the state attorney general’s office “has knowledge of facts relevant to these potential offenses and has provided statements concerning those facts to the appropriate law enforcement.”
But just as important is the inconvenient fact that Paxton was also indicted a few years ago on felony securities fraud charges. [And this did not force him to step down?] It’s the sort of background that should lead a scandal-plagued president to keep his ally at arm’s length, but instead, Team Trump welcomed the Texas Republican as the co-chair of Lawyers for Trump.
For his part, Paxton, not surprisingly, denied the allegations. He also issued a statement suggesting he intends to launch an investigation into his own office’s employees who’ve accused him of corruption. [This would be illegal retaliation against whistleblowers].
As of this morning, the Texas Republican is still listed as one of the top leaders of Lawyers for Trump.
It’s time to fit this corrupt attorney general for an orange jumpsuit and send his ass to prison for a long time. (Maybe he and Bill Barr can be roomies).
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UPDATE 10/22/20: “Top aides in Texas attorney general’s office terminated after accusing Ken Paxton of bribery”, https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/20/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-aide-fired/
Texas law “protects public employees who make good faith reports of violations of law by their employer to an appropriate law enforcement authority,” according to the Texas attorney general’s website. “An employer may not suspend or terminate the employment of, or take other adverse personnel action against, a public employee who makes a report under the Act.”
Lacey Mase, one of the top aides who accused Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton of crimes including bribery and abuse of office, has been fired, she told The Texas Tribune on Tuesday evening.
“It was not voluntary,” she said, but declined to comment further.
[Other] top aides — Jeff Mateer, who previously spent years as Paxton’s top deputy — has resigned, and another, Mark Penley, has been placed on leave.
Jason Smith, a North Texas employment attorney who has handled whistleblower cases and who worked in the attorney general’s office in the 1990s, said “This looks and smells like classic whistleblower retaliation,” Smith said. “This situation looks like what the Texas Whistleblower Act was designed to prevent. And the timing looks bad.”