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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 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.
Paxton, 60, has decried what he called “political theater” based on “hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims,” and said it’s an attempt to disenfranchise voters who reelected him in November. It’s unclear where the attorney general was Saturday, but during the House proceeding he was sharing statements from supporters on Twitter.
“No one person should be above the law, least not the top law enforcement officer of the state of Texas,” Rep. David Spiller, a Republican member of the committee that investigated Paxton, said in opening statements. Rep. Ann Johnson, a Democratic member, told lawmakers that Texas’ “top cop is on the take.” Rep. Charlie Geren, a Republican committee member, said without elaborating that Paxton had called lawmakers and threatened them with political “consequences.” As the articles of impeachment were laid out, some of the lawmakers shook their heads. They are expected to debate impeachment for four hours before voting.
Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial. Until this week, his fellow Republicans had taken a muted stance on the allegations.
