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Paxton Impeachment summary [1]

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Date: 2023-09-14  

Closing argument this morning. Brynne and I have been watching. Her most recent articles: Summarization of the Case Against Paxton. www.dailykos.com/…

and www.dailykos.com/… Summary of Paxton's Defense

Here’s my thoughts on the main issues. I personally think Paxton richly deserves impeachment but I’ve disliked him for a long time. From clearest to murkiest:

1. Mitte foundation. Paxton intervened to reduce the $10.5 settlement that Nate Paul was considering. That’s illegal. As AG, Paxton can safeguard money in charities and safeguard public money, but he can’t help a private individual in a lawsuit against the charity. (In the end, the charity refused the reduced settlement and won $23 million at trial).

2. Attempting to obtain law enforcement records thru Freedom Of Information Act requests. That’s never done, and so Paxton abused his power trying to get it done. Unclear how major this is.

3. Issuing an opinion cancelling foreclosure sales during Covid. That would be OK if for a legitimate purpose, but the facts suggest otherwise. Paxton ordered an aide to draft a ruling by (sat?). The aide drafted an opinion keeping them in place, in accordance with the AG’s general position of keeping things open. Paxton ordered him to reverse his ruling and have it ready by midnight Sunday (the midnight ruling). The aide saying the ruling was like something Anthony Fauci would have done. No testimony on either side of Paxton’s reasons for wanting foreclosure sales halted, but it turns out that the ruling was needed by then to halt a Nate Paul foreclosure sale that would have happened early in the following week. The ruling was used to temporarily halt the sale.

4. Firing the whistleblowers. That’s against state law and violating state law is abuse of office (or a crime or both). Brent Webster, Paxton’s first lieutenant after all the whistleblowers were fired or otherwise departed, wrote a long memo giving reasons why all were fired. Some of the reasons were frivolous — this person didn’t get along well with other people. (It was just a coincidence that all were fired within a short time period, some having many years of service). During the trial, it was claimed they were fired for insubordination after Webster took over. But, one of them testified that when Webster took over, he was immediately stripped of all duties. So, impossible to be insubordinate.

5. Appointing outside counsel (special prosecutor) to investigate the search warrants used against Paul. I don’t have all the facts here. Was the AG acting as prosecutor here in issuing search warrants to gather evidence? I’m not sure they have the authority. (an alternative was going to be to convene a grand jury). The Travis County Prosecutor said the AG can’t appoint a special prosecutor, and I think they can’t prosecute without acting together with the County prosecutors. And, if they had the authority, would checking into the validity of search warrants issued in another case be proper scope for their authority? Finally, allowing Paul’s lawyer to accompany the outside counsel in serving the warrants was VERY improper — suggesting that the AG’s office was allied with Nate Paul — and possibly illegal.

6. Bribery. Brynne’s probably right that there’s not enough proof. This was all very rushed. No depositions, very little discovery. But, Nate Paul hired the girlfriend and apparently renovated a house for them. A Paxton aide testified that when the cost of an improvement was discussed, several times the contractors said to talk to Paul. Paxton attempted to clean this up, but the timing is suspicious. He received an invoice the day the whistleblowers went to the FBI, but he paid the invoice the previous day. The company has some ties to Nate Paul. I don’t know what kind of proof of agreement, if any, you need for bribery. I also don’t know why Paxton was so involved in helping Paul for so little financial gain. Perhaps trying to conceal the girlfriend. Perhaps he was conned by Paul into believing Paul was being railroaded.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/14/2193410/-Paxton-Impeachment-summary

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