news Texas AG Ken Paxton impeached by Republican-controlled House

[VOSS]

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Texas’ GOP-led House of Representatives impeached state Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust, a sudden, historic rebuke of a fellow Republican who rose to be a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and alleged crimes.

 

The vote triggers Paxton’s immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the state Senate and empowers Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas’ top lawyer in the interim.

 

The 121-23 vote constitutes an abrupt downfall for one of the GOP’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of Donald Trump. It makes Paxton only the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

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OP: 

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A Republican-led committee of the Texas House of Representatives recommended on Thursday that the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, be impeached for a range of abuses of his office that the committee’s investigators said may have been crimes.

The recommendation thrust the State Capitol and its Republican leadership into uncharted political territory in the waning days of the legislative session, setting the stage for the House to hold a vote on impeachment, its first in decades and one of the few ever conducted in the state’s history.

 

If he is impeached, Mr. Paxton, a Republican who has been under a separate criminal indictment since 2015, would be required to step down from his post temporarily while he faces trial in the State Senate.

“There’s really no precedent — we’ve really only had two impeachments under the Constitution of 1876,” said Mark P. Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University. They include the governor in 1917, who resigned the day before the Senate convicted him, and a district judge who was convicted and removed in the 1970s.

 

“Overturning elections begins behind closed doors,” Mr. Paxton said in a post on Twitter that included video of a lawyer from his office arguing against impeachment to reporters in a nearly empty committee room, while the committee’s deliberations were underway.

 

After the vote, the committee filed 20 articles of impeachment against Mr. Paxton, charging him with a litany of abuses including taking bribes, disregarding his official duty, obstructing justice in a separate securities fraud case pending against him, making false statements on official documents and reports, and abusing the public trust.

 

Many of the charges related to the various ways that Mr. Paxton had used his office to benefit a particular donor, the committee said, and then fire those in the office who spoke up against his actions.

As the articles were being handed out around the House chamber late Thursday, Andrew Murr, the chairman of the committee, a Republican, said that they described “grave offenses” and that he intended to bring them up for a vote by the House.

Full story

Edited May 27, 2023 by VOSS

[Communion]

The video of someone finding a dumpster next to his office with documents being burned. 

[Aston Martin]

This man had to have ****** up badly for his fellow Texas Republicans to impeach him. 

[VOSS]

Texas GOP response

[Bethenny Frankel]

well hello, let's celebrate that

[Sanctuary]

This career criminal might finally be getting his day in court soon

 

They're reading out the 20 (!) articles of impeachment on the floor now, and a lot of them are felonies with YEARS of prison time attached.

[khalyan]

Texas House votes to impeach Paxton

 

 

[princedonte]

I remember him getting booed at the Beto rally I attended. He’s no good. 

Edited May 27, 2023 by princedonte

[VOSS]

[Sanctuary]

Impeached in a landslide. 80%

 

Kick his wife out of the senate next! Her race in 2018 was actually competitive, 51/49.

[khalyan]

The vote to impeach was 121 to 23  

 

Even my representative in a city that voted for Trump by 45% more than Biden voted to impeach.  I’m kinda speechless 

[modeblock]

Wait, how the ffff did this happen? If there's anything the Republicans will do is defend their own, so this dude must've pissed someone really powerful off. 

 

love to see it tho 

 

lock IT up 

Edited May 28, 2023 by modeblock

[VOSS]

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AUSTIN, Texas—Investigators helping prosecute impeachment charges against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have expanded their probe to examine a property-buying spree that began after he came under federal investigation for alleged abuse of his office, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

Paxton, his wife and a family trust spent almost $3.5 million buying six properties across the U.S. in less than 10 months from July 2021 to April 2022, real-estate records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show. The properties are a five-bedroom luxury lodge in Oklahoma; a townhouse and two rental homes in Florida; and parcels of land in a Utah ski town and on Maui, Hawaii.

 

After voting to impeach Paxton late last month, Texas House members hired additional lawyers and investigators to help present a case to the state Senate.

 

The property purchases aroused suspicions of investigators working for House members in part because of the timing and the large sums expended, these people said. Paxton made $153,750 a year as attorney general while his wife, Angela Paxton, a longtime high-school math teacher, is a Texas state senator, a role that pays $7,200 a year, plus some per-diem payments every other year.

 

“General Paxton decided to direct much of his long-term savings from a brokerage account to real estate,” said Tony Buzbee, an attorney representing Paxton in the impeachment trial.

 

The Republican-dominated Texas House voted to impeach Ken Paxton on 20 charges, most of them stemming from the attorney general’s alleged abuses of his office to protect a friend and political donor, Austin real-estate investor Nate Paul. Earlier this month Paul was indicted on federal charges of lying on bank-loan applications and has pleaded not guilty.

 

Paxton, a high-profile conservative warrior known nationally for his close ties to former President Donald Trump, called the impeachment effort by his fellow Republicans an illegal effort to overturn the will of the voters. He was elected attorney general for a third time in November.

 

The Texas House could bring additional impeachment charges before the state Senate holds a trial, currently scheduled for September. Even if that doesn’t happen, rules adopted by the Senate allow investigators latitude to delve into other matters related to Paxton, which could be introduced as evidence. Paxton is currently suspended from office without pay.

 

The Texas House investigations committee, which led the initial probe into Paxton, had already signaled it was expanding its inquiry into the Paxtons’ personal finances by voting late last month to issue a raft of new subpoenas.

 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation began probing Paxton in late 2020, after eight of the top-ranking deputies in the attorney general’s office accused him of using his office to interfere in a federal investigation into Paul, his friend and donor.

Impeachment Investigators Look Into Texas Attorney General’s Real-Estate Spree

[VOSS]

 

[Sannie]

His wife, who sits on the state Congress, was just basically forced to recuse herself during his conviction trial. It seems like Texas GOP is serious about removing him. Damn... there must be more to this story. He must have pissed someone big off for Texas GOP to say "your corruption is too much".

[VOSS]

Trial started today.

MAGA is on his side. Total mess for the Texas GOP.

 

[VOSS]

God damn it

[GhostBox]

41 minutes ago, VOSS said:

God damn it

Hes one of the most corrupt politicians in this country. It’s crazy