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September 16, 2023

Texas AG Ken Paxton was acquitted on all charges

By Andrea Widburg

Ken Paxton is Texas’s attorney general. In terms of pursuing policies for the state, he has been consistently very conservative: Among other things, he challenged Obamacare, he’s pro-life (or, as it’s now being termed, pro-baby), he worked to stop local governments in Texas from mandating lockdowns, he’s pro-Second Amendment, he’s fought the open border and human trafficking, he’s pushed back against climate change madness, and he’s tried to stem LGBTQ+ extremism. In other words, he’s one of the good guys…so he was impeached. However, today, Paxton was acquitted on all charges. This closes another chapter in the civil war raging within the Republican party.

If you haven’t followed the case, here’s a very summary account of what happened: In February 2023, Paxton asked for more money for his office, some of which would cover a settlement that whistleblowers had brought against him. That request resulted in an investigation that triggered the impeachment. There was a personal element to the impeachment because Paxton had accused Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan of showing up intoxicated and demanded an investigation and Phelan’s resignation:

I have no idea what was behind Phelan’s peculiar performance. I do remember from my time at the UT Law School in Austin that the rumor amongst the students was that the legislature was a hard-drinking institution, but that was a long time ago.

The impeachment laid against Paxton was predicated on 20 separate charges revolving around claims that he accepted bribes from and tried to protect a donor, fired whistleblowers, tried to cover up that firing, and wanted to use taxpayer funds to cover the eventual settlement, along with miscellaneous other charges.

I have no idea whether there was any truth to any of the charges. However, it’s notable that the whistleblowers admitted that they had no facts to justify blowing those whistles. Instead, they just “felt” that something was off:

During the impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, former employees admitted that they reported Paxton to the FBI without any evidence and had no reason not to trust federal agents.

Ryan Vassar, a former deputy attorney general under Paxton, testified over the course of two days regarding his decision to report the AG to the FBI. He claimed that he and seven other so-called whistleblowers had a “good faith belief” that Paxton had committed criminal actions.

[snip]

During the cross-examination by Mitch Little, an attorney for Paxton, Vassar made the shocking revelation that he and the other employees had gone to the FBI without a shred of evidence.

“Mr. Vassar, please, I want to get this straight — you went to the FBI on September 30 with your compatriots, and reported the elected attorney general of this state for a crime without any evidence?” Little asked. “Yes?”

“That’s right,” Vassar admitted. “We took no evidence.”

He attempted to clarify, saying, “We had no evidence that we could point to, but we had reasonable conclusions we could draw.”

It was the triumph of post-modernism, which saw feelings almost destroy a man’s career and thwart the electorate’s will.

Of course, this wasn’t just post-modernism. It also reflected political infighting in Texas between conservatives and the establishment (i.e., Deep State Republicans). Thus, the ones who made these baseless claims to the FBI were all allies of the Bush family, and, when you think of George H.W. Bush’s CIA background, no one is deeper state than the Bush clan.

Fortunately for Paxton and conservativism in Texas, and not so wonderfully for the old Bush family political infrastructure, the Texas Senate reached its verdict today and acquitted Paxton on every one of the charges still pending against him:

Of course, while Paxton is cleared, the case represents a schism in Republican America that continues to weaken conservativism while strengthening the Democrats. When push comes to shove, Democrats always come together, while Republicans always fall apart.

On the one hand, the Republican party comprises the old Chamber of Commerce cadre, which has now become the corporatist, globalist, Deep State cadre that so bitterly resented Trump. (Note that the Chamber of Commerce no longer cares about Main Street America.) This is the faction that controls the RNC (which, notably, doesn’t seem to have done anything since 2020 to stop election fraud).

On the other hand, the Republican party is made up of people whose loyalty is to America, Americans, and the Constitution. Many are imperfect, but all of them are better (in my opinion) than the Chamber of Commerce loyalists who seem to have way too much in common with the Democrat party.

Image: Ken Paxton. YouTube screen grab.

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