Texas AG Ken Paxton makes rare appearance in Texas House ahead of impeachment vote
Texas AG Ken Paxton makes rare appearance in Texas House ahead of impeachment vote
04:19
Austin, Texas The GOP-led Texas House of Representatives will introduce an impeachment motion on Saturday Attorney General Ken PaxtonAccording to a memo of the committee on Thursday 20 sections of impeachment were filed against him,
According to the House Investigative Committee, the debate on the impeachment motion will begin at 2 p.m. ET. The committee has proposed a four-hour debate, evenly divided between supporters and proponents of impeachment, plus 40 minutes for opening arguments and 20 minutes for closing statements by committee members.
A simple majority of the members of the House is required to impeach Paxton. Republicans hold an 85–64 majority in the House—a commanding majority, but a decline from the more than 40-seat lead the party had as recently as 2017.
The House Investigating Committee on Thursday recommended 20 articles of impeachment against Paxton, including charges of bribery, obstruction of justice and abuse of public trust. Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over allegations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted in 2015 on securities fraud charges. CBS News Texas,
Paxton spoke to reporters on Friday but did not directly respond to any of the allegations against him. Instead, he accused State House Republicans of being “determined to ignore the law”. He also accused her of “settin’ to sabotage what Joe Biden has been hopein’ to accomplish since his first day in office: my work as attorney general in Texas, our work.”
FILE – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. After years of legal and ethics scandals revolving around Texas Republican Attorney General Paxton, the state’s GOP-controlled House of Representatives is headed toward an impeachment vote that could quickly throw him from office.
Jacqueline Martin / AP
Paxton’s investigation began in March after he asked the House to fund a $3.3 million whistleblower lawsuit settlement, according to a memo by Republican Representative Andrew Moore, chairman of the investigative committee.
Paxton is a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and filed a Lawsuit in December 2020 seeking to overturn presidential election results in key battlegrounds, which was later tossed by the Supreme Court,
paxton on thursday tweeted a statement which accused the investigative committee of asking the Texas House to “use its baseless report to overturn the results of a free and fair election”. Attorney General Chris Hilton, chief litigator, said Thursday that the State House could not move forward with impeachment for allegations that arose before the last election. In a Friday memo, the House Investigative Committee said this so-called “pardon doctrine” “does not apply to impeachment.”
Paxton won a third term in November, defeating Democrat Rochelle Garza by nearly 10 points.
If the House votes to impeach Paxton, he will face trial in the Texas State Senate. According to the memo, the House would appoint its members as “impeachment managers” to conduct the trial in the Senate.
The 2023 Texas legislative session will end on May 29 — a date known as the “sine die,” or when all legislation must be sent to the governor’s desk. Although normally only the governor can bring back MPs in a special session, the texas constitution says senate The impeachment trial can continue even after the end of the session.
Republicans hold a 19-12 majority in the Senate, and a two-thirds majority is needed to remove him from office. But according to the Texas state constitution, if Paxton is impeached, he would be immediately suspended, with the trial underway in the Senate.
The Senate has expelled lawmakers only twice, by Gov. James Ferguson in 1917 and District Judge OP Carrillo in 1975. At the University of Texas-Austin on Friday, the Lyndon B. called the impeachment “earth-shattering”.
“It really is a tidal wave,” Greenberg said. “It’s rare, we’ve only seen a couple of times in Texas history, the impeachment of a public official.”
The recommendation to bring articles of impeachment against Paxton comes just weeks after the House of Representatives took the extraordinary step Vote unanimously to expel Republican Representative Byron Slaton, who resigned the day before, The House Investigating Committee, the same committee that investigated Paxton, found that he had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with a 19-year-old intern.
