FEMA director-turned-congressman sums up GOP’s day: ‘I know a disaster when I see one’

Posted on September 28, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

On Thursday, after Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez deconstructed the through-the-looking-glass nature of the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, fellow Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida got his five minutes. Wasting no time, Moskowitz brought some real entertainment to the proceedings.

After Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Republican, told Moskowitz it was his “lucky day” to have this time, Moskowitz replied, “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it's your lucky day.” Smiling and looking at the underwhelming Republican witnesses, Moskowitz quipped, “What a day we are having here, isn't it? I mean, listen, as a former director of emergency management, I know a disaster when I see one.”

Kapow. Moskowitz went on, saying you didn’t have to take his word for it, and then mentioned the reaction of conservative strategist and convicted criminal Steve Bannon. Bannon, Moskowitz said, was angry that conservative legal scholar Jonathan Turley was one of the first Republican witnesses, after Turley testified that nothing the Republican Party has uncovered so far rises to the level of impeachment. Moskowitz turned to the Republicans on the committee and said, “Boy, that is awkward. I mean, look, it's like political impeachment malpractice.”

And Moskowitz was just getting started.

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From there, Moskowitz proceeded with slides. First, he mentioned that Fox News asked Comer if he could make a solid allegation of bribery against Joe Biden, to which Comer responded, “I hope so.” Moskowitz then brought up Sen. Chuck Grassley’s strange admission (on television, no less): "We [Republicans] are not interested in whether the allegations against Vice President Biden are accurate or not.”

After that, Moskowitz really let loose, and it’s worth quoting at length:

We're all appearing now in the world's worst-acted TV drama, right? It's been picked up for a second season. ‘The Real House Republicans of Oversight.’ You know, perhaps the material is so bad due to the writers' strike. I mean, how many Republicans, Freedom Caucus members, part of the chaos caucus, have said there's no evidence to impeach Joe Biden?

And again, of course, we know it's not about the evidence. Why? Here is a list of all of the articles of impeachment that have been filed by my colleagues, some that are on this committee. When was the first article filed? It was filed in January of ‘21, two weeks after Jan. 6th. So before we had a single hearing, before they went through this myriad of fishing, they were filing articles of impeachment.

Professor Turley, you said this doesn't rise to the level of impeachment and you said they shouldn't prejudge. Well, here’s a list right here of every single member, many on this committee, prejudging. They're filing articles of impeachment: COVID, Afghanistan, Hunter Biden. And they're all one-upping each other in the Donald Trump-friend-Olympics, trying to get invited to the sleepover at Mar-a-Lago. ‘I filed articles of impeachment against Merrick Garland. No, I filed articles of impeachment against Kamala Harris.’ Okay.

It is ridiculous. But this is what this is about. Let me show you. It's a simple board, right? So all other presidents in the United States, 50% of the impeachments, Donald Trump … Donald Trump has half of the impeachments in American history. But you know what? He's got 100% of the indictments, 100% of all indictments. Zero for the other presidents. Listen, let me do it another way. I want to channel my inner Tim Russert. So let me go to the board. Right? And I don't have Florida, but Donald Trump impeachments—oh, how many impeachments we got? How many indictments we got? Four. How many for Biden? Zero, zero.

Donald Trump is right. He's sick of winning. He's just winning, running away with it. And that's why we're here. We're here because of math. That's what this is about. They can't save Donald Trump. They can't take away the two impeachments and the four indictments. But they can try to put some numbers on the board for Joe Biden.

But the problem is, when you sling mud, you’ve got to have mud. And they just don't have anything, Mr. Chairman. So, look, we get it. We know why we're here. That's why they say ‘the Biden family,’ ‘the Bidens,’ ‘James Biden,’ Joe Biden's dog Commander’—but not ‘Joe Biden.’ Never Joe Biden. So when are you going to have the vote on impeachment, Mr. Chairman?

What are you scared of? Call the vote. Come on. If you all think there's so much evidence, we're here. Call the vote on impeachment. Impeach him right now! I dare you!

Oh boy, he got a lot with his five minutes.

Enough with the weak leadership and MAGA circus. Sign the petition: Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker!

Watch AOC perfectly get to the point in sham impeachment hearing

Posted on September 28, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

Republicans’ baseless impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden began on Thursday. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin leveled the room with his opening statement as he pointed out the circus Republicans were conducting. He was followed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who blew apart the lies and exposed the witnesses for their complete evidentiary irrelevance.

Ocasio-Cortez started her five minutes by asking the three witnesses whether their testimonies included “any firsthand witness account of crimes committed” by President Joe Biden. All three answered that they had no such accounts. In contrast, there were two witnesses with firsthand accounts being blocked by the Republican majority, Ocasio-Cortez said. “And I want to explain why this is important,” she continued. “Members of Congress, all of us in this hearing, are not under oath, as we are presently covered by the speech and debate clause.”

Having explained that it wasn’t illegal for Republicans on the panel to lie or mislead during these hearings, Ocasio-Cortez went on to show how misleading some of the “evidence” Republicans on the committee were presenting was. “Earlier today, one of our colleagues, a gentleman from Florida, presented up on this screen, something that looked—appeared—to be a screenshot of a text message containing or insinuating an explosive allegation,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “That screenshot of what appeared to be a text message was a fabricated image. It was a fabricated image. I don't know where it came from. I don't know if it was the staff of the committee, but it was not the actual direct screenshot from that phone.” She went on to remind the public and those at the hearing that the image presented “excluded critical context that changed the underlying meaning and allegation that was presented up on that screen by this committee and by members of this committee.”

Now that’s evidence of chicanery of the highest order.

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There is a very good reason the Republicans may have decided not to include witnesses with firsthand knowledge of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s relationship to Burisma, like Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer, who they interviewed behind closed doors. Archer not only contradicted the claims that Joe Biden had anything to do with his son’s business dealings, he also contradicted the theory that the U.S. policy to get rid of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor helped Biden’s son’s business.

Denounce the baseless impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

Republican impeachment inquiry gets off to a perfect start

Republicans' star witness contradicts Republican claims

Watch Jamie Raskin shred the ‘flying monkeys’ running the impeachment inquiry

Posted on September 28, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

On Thursday, Rep. Jamie Raskin gave the Democratic Party’s opening statement during the first hearing of the political sideshow that is the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Raskin absolutely leveled the place.

“No foreign enemy has ever been able to shut down the government of the United States, but now MAGA Republicans are about to do just that,” he said. He noted the “long-debunked and discredited lie” at the foundation of the impeachment inquiry before pointing out that as “harsh” as his words may seem, Republican lawmakers have said even harsher things about their party’s ongoing civil war.

With aides holding up four placards showing quotes from Republican Reps. Don Bacon, Tony Gonzales, Mike Lawler, and others about the dysfunction in the House GOP, Raskin reminded everyone that being against the extremists in government should not be a partisan position. He then presented substantial evidence that House Republicans’ reason for the impending government shutdown was to aid Donald Trump in his battle against our justice system. Raskin continued:

To delay justice, Donald Trump would cut off paychecks to a couple million service members and federal workers, and furlough more than a million workers and pay them later for having not worked. They would halt food assistance to millions of moms and kids, and keep NIH, in my district, from enrolling any more patients in life and death clinical research trials.

Trump's convinced that if we shut the government down, his four criminal prosecutions on 91 different charges will be defunded and delayed long enough to keep him from having to go before a jury of his peers before the 2024 election. And like flying monkeys on a mission for the Wicked Witch of the West, Trump's followers in the House now carry messages out to the world: Shut down the government. Shut down the prosecutions.

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We are less than three days away from Republicans shutting down the government. Instead of figuring out how to accomplish one of the most basic functions of their job—keeping the government running—the Republican Party pushes forward with their evidence-free impeachment inquiry. After a clownish press conference on Wednesday kicked off the festivities, how much more ludicrous this will all get is hard to fathom.

Enough with the weak leadership and MAGA circus. Sign the petition: Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker!

House Republicans vow shutdown won’t stop impeachment inquiry

Posted on September 27, 2023 by Laura Clawson

House Republicans are on the brink of shutting down the government. The Senate is moving forward with a bipartisan continuing resolution to keep the government open into November, but House Republicans are busy with a "pissing match" between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and obstructionist Rep. Matt Gaetz. That doesn’t mean the House isn’t doing anything, though. No, Republicans are getting their bogus impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden moving, saying they see no reason it couldn’t continue through a government shutdown.

“We’re going to keep going,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer told CNN on Tuesday, saying that a shutdown wouldn’t affect the members or staff involved in the impeachment inquiry. That would be a great look for Republicans—showing voters that they weren’t focused on keeping the government open, and offering a constant reminder that members of Congress were still being paid while government workers weren’t.

Comer has a hearing scheduled for Thursday, which his office told Fox News “will examine the value of an impeachment inquiry.” Apparently, even Comer isn’t confident that he and his fellow Republicans have made that case to the public. The hearing will rehash the findings of Comer’s months of investigations—investigations that notably haven’t turned up any real evidence that Biden has engaged in corruption or profited from his son’s business dealings.

Like Comer, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan told CNN a government shutdown wouldn’t stop him. “Every week there’s a whole roster of folks” scheduled for committee interviews, he said.

The committee staff conducting the interviews wouldn’t be paid in the event of a shutdown, but could be deemed “essential” by Congress members and forced to work. A source told CNN, though, that there was still question about whether a court reporter, necessary for transcribing interviews, would be considered essential, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene noted that a shutdown could affect the ability of government agencies to respond to subpoenas. (Take note: Greene seems to be more clearheaded about the outcomes of a shutdown than Comer or Jordan.)

Going ahead with a baseless impeachment inquiry while shutting down the government out of sheer spite would be an impressive one-two punch, even by Republican standards. What could they possibly do that would more clearly display how far their priorities are from what voters want Congress to deliver?

Sign and send the petition: NO to MAGA impeachment. Focus on what matters.

WATCH LIVE: The Biden Impeachment Hearings – Day 1

Posted on September 27, 2023 by Farnoush Amiri, Associated Press

The hearing -- scheduled for Sept. 28 -- is expected to focus on "constitutional and legal questions" that surround the allegations of Biden's involvement in his son Hunter's overseas businesses.

Dan Patrick defends taking $3 million from pro-Paxton group ahead of trial

Posted on September 23, 2023 by Texas Tribune

By Patrick Svitek

The Texas Tribune

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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has defended taking $3 million from a group supporting Ken Paxton in the lead-up to the attorney general’s impeachment trial that Patrick presided over as judge.

Patrick said in a TV interview published Wednesday that the controversy over the funding ignored that he took just as much from “the other side,” including donors aligned with Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which Paxton has declared as a political enemy. Patrick gave the explanation, which was heavily caveated, in an interview four days after his Senate voted to acquit Paxton.

“[The $3 million] got headlines because people wanted to make it a headline … but I also raised almost the same amount of money from people who may not be anti-Paxton, but they weren’t out there being pro-Paxton,” Patrick said in the interview with WFAA, the ABC affiliate in Dallas. “There are a few exceptions, because some of the people supporting TLR also supported Ken Paxton.”

The funding in question came in late June, when statewide officials and state lawmakers had a 12-day window to raise money before the first reporting deadline since the regular legislative session. Patrick reported a $1 million donation and $2 million from Defend Texas Liberty PAC, a group that had led the charge to attack House Republicans who voted to impeach Paxton. A leader with the PAC later threatened political revenge against any senator who sided against Paxton in his trial.

The money grabbed attention because the Senate was gearing up for the trial at the time — the chamber approved trial rules June 21 — and Patrick had little need for the money. He is not up for reelection until 2026, he already had over $16 million in the bank as of last year, and he had also never gotten nearly as much money from Defend Texas Liberty before.

Patrick declined to comment on the $3 million in pro-Paxton money when it became public. A day earlier, he had issued a sweeping gag order ahead of the trial.

While Patrick did raise roughly $3 million more on the same fundraising report, it is difficult to verify how much was actually from the “other side” in the Paxton trial. TLR is a powerful tort reform group that has become synonymous with the GOP establishment in Austin; it heavily funded one of Paxton’s 2022 primary challengers and had urged senators to reject pretrial motions to dismiss his impeachment case.

TLR itself only gave $25,000 on Patrick’s latest campaign finance report, while its co-founder, Richard Weekley, gave $50,000.

It is true that some of Patrick’s biggest donors in late June — beside Defend Texas Liberty — were also aligned with TLR. For example, Patrick received $150,000 from real estate developer Ross Perot Jr., who had cut a $1 million check to TLR less than two months earlier.

But some of Patrick’s largest donors beyond Defend Texas Liberty were also not TLR allies. Patrick got $100,000 from Midland oilman Douglas Scharbauer, who has not given anything to TLR this year, according to the latest records. Furthermore, Scharbauer was Paxton’s second largest individual donor on the attorney general’s late June report, the first since he was impeached.

Patrick’s invoking of TLR was notable given that Paxton has pilloried the group as a force behind his impeachment. They have denied any involvement in initiating it.

Patrick backed up TLR as he sought to explain the money he got from the “other side.”

“I don’t believe they were involved in this at all, but they’re seen as, They wanted a trial and they supported other people against Ken Paxton, so anybody supporting TLR, would be thought to be [anti-Paxton],” Patrick said. “I know that’s not the case. They all weren’t.”

Disclosure: Texans for Lawsuit Reform and Ross Perot Jr. have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Motion to vacate: Should Democrats help or laugh?

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Joan McCarter

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is in a Catch-22, and he has only himself to blame for it. He’s got until the end of next week to figure out how to keep the government from shutting down—and save his own political skin. So far, he has proven incapable of doing either and created a dynamic in which one of two things is inevitable: a shutdown or a vote calling for his ouster as speaker. At this point, it seems both are likely.

The solution for averting a shutdown is pretty simple: McCarthy has to accept the reality that the Senate and the White House are in Democratic hands, and there is no way that the demands the hard-liners are making on funding will be enacted. If he doesn’t find a compromise and get Democrats in the House to help him pass a stopgap funding bill by the end of next week, the government shuts down and Republicans will get the blame. Because he’s in charge (at least nominally), McCarthy will get the lion’s share of it.

If he does get Democratic help and manage to keep the nation from looking like a banana republic, the nihilists will try to oust him via Rep. Matt Gaetz’s motion to vacate the chair. Someone wanted to make that threat abundantly clear, leaving a copy of that resolution in a restroom near the House chamber, where a reporter would be likely to find it—and did find it.

“The thing that would force the motion to vacate is if Kevin has to rely on Democrat votes to pass a CR,” Freedom Caucus Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado told Punchbowl News Tuesday. “I don’t think it has legs until Kevin relies on Democrats.” On the other hand, he said, “I don’t see how we can pass the bill [a CR] without Democrat votes.”

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Wheeee!

Where does that leave Democrats? In a position to let McCarthy dangle.

Since the last time House Republicans took the nation to the brink of disaster on the debt ceiling, a group of conservative Democrats in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus offered to help out by providing enough votes to protect McCarthy from a move to boot him.

That offer is off the table now, Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips told reporters, thanks to McCarthy’s capitulation to the worst people in his conference and his greenlighting a toxic impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. There’s no condoning or rewarding that, even from the most conservative of Democrats.

As of now, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is meeting with his various Democratic groups, including the Problem Solvers, and seeing what it is they want. But that will not include capitulating to Republicans. “Leader Jeffries has been very clear,” Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar reiterated Tuesday morning. “They have to get rid of these ideological riders [on appropriations,] they have to fund the government at existing … levels and we need to meet the needs of the Ukrainian people fighting for freedom and the urgent disasters that we have had across this country.”

That’s where Democrats are and that’s where they need to stay so that McCarthy comes to them. They need to leave him stranded and friendless unless and until they extract concessions, like a commitment to realistically fund the government and put any impeachment nonsense on the back burner. McCarthy has a lot more to lose than Democrats do.

Greene throws tantrum over Gaetz stealing her impeachment thunder

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What do you do if you're associated with one of the biggest election fraud scandals in recent memory? If you're Republican Mark Harris, you try running for office again! On this week's episode of "The Downballot," we revisit the absolutely wild story of Harris' 2018 campaign for Congress, when one of his consultants orchestrated a conspiracy to illegally collect blank absentee ballots from voters and then had his team fill them out before "casting" them. Officials wound up tossing the results of this almost-stolen election, but now Harris is back with a new bid for the House—and he won't shut up about his last race, even blaming Democrats for the debacle.

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Former GOP skeptics now support impeachment probe

Posted on September 18, 2023 by Laura Clawson

Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced an impeachment inquiry without a full House vote, at a time when he didn’t appear to have the votes. Republicans have a four-seat House majority, and currently, more than four Republicans indicated that they didn’t see grounds for an inquiry. But McCarthy spoke the support he needed into existence. The kind of ostensibly moderate Republican who didn’t want to see an impeachment inquiry will nonetheless go along with leadership for the sake of partisan advantage.

See, for instance, Rep. Don Bacon. In August, Bacon told NBC News, “We should have more confidence that actual high crimes and misdemeanors occurred before starting a formal impeachment inquiry.” Last week, as McCarthy announced his voteless inquiry, Bacon said, “As of now I don't support” an inquiry, because it “should be based on evidence of a crime that points directly to President Biden, or if the President doesn't cooperate by not providing documents.”

Less than a week later, Bacon’s position has shifted to cautious support. “I don’t think it’s healthy or good for our country. So I wanted to set a high bar. I want to do it carefully. I want to do it conscientiously, do it meticulously," Bacon said. "But it’s been done. So, at this point, we’ll see what the facts are.”

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No person who has observed House Republicans over the past eight months could possibly believe that they will proceed carefully, conscientiously, or meticulously. But Bacon has shown how much his opposition is worth—and how much it will be worth if he ever has to decide how to vote on impeachment.

Similarly, Rep. David Joyce said in August, “You hear a lot of rumor and innuendo … but that’s not fact to me. As a former prosecutor, I think there has to be facts, and I think there has to be due process that we follow, and I’ve not seen any of that today.” Now? In a statement, Joyce said, “I support Speaker McCarthy’s decision to direct the House Committees on Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.” What’s more, he’s “confident” that the committee leaders conducting the inquiry—Oversight Chair James Comer, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith—“will conduct thoughtful and thorough investigations into allegations against the President, which I will carefully review.”

Saying you’re confident Comer and Jordan will be “thoughtful and thorough” is kind of a tell that nothing you’re saying should be believed.

People like Bacon and Joyce know there’s no there there, but once McCarthy said the inquiry was happening, they fell in line. Because they’re Republicans, and the only principle in the Republican Party is power. The problem for them now is that if the inquiry wraps up quickly (not likely—Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling for it to be “long and excruciatingly painful”), they’ll have to take a vote on it. But if it doesn’t wrap up quickly, it runs the serious risk of alienating voters and showing that House Republicans are unserious about governing.

Strikingly, the House Republican who is speaking out against the impeachment inquiry most loudly is Rep. Ken Buck, a Freedom Caucus member who wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post calling the current inquiry a “flimsy excuse for an impeachment.” In the politics of today’s Republican Party, being a member of the far right entitles Buck to take that kind of stance, while Republicans who represent districts Biden won in 2020 have to regularly show their fealty to the party by supporting extreme positions.

And let’s be real—Buck is likely to end up voting for impeachment, too, if the House ever gets to that point rather than engaging in a dragged-out show trial.

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Ken Paxton was acquitted at his impeachment trial, but he still faces legal troubles

Posted on September 16, 2023 by Associated Press

For years, the powers and protections that come with being Texas’ top lawyer have helped Ken Paxton fend off ethics complains, criminal charges and an FBI investigation.

With the Texas Senate’s Saturday vote to acquit Paxton of corruption charges at his impeachment trial the Republican has once again demonstrated his rare political resilience. And he retains the shield of the attorney general's office in legal battles still to come.

After being cleared, Paxton, 60, thanked his lawyers for “exposing the absurdity” of the “false allegations” against him, and he promised to resume doing legal battle with the administration of President Joe Biden.

"The weaponization of the impeachment process to settle political differences is not only wrong, it is immoral and corrupt," he said in a statement. “Now that this shameful process is over, my work to defend our constitutional rights will resume.”

Back in office, Paxton nonetheless still faces serious risk on three fronts: an ongoing a federal investigation into the same allegations that led to his impeachment; a disciplinary proceeding over his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election; and felony securities fraud charges dating to 2015.

Here's what to know about each.

THE FEDERAL INVESTIGATION

Paxton came under FBI investigation in 2020 when eight of his top deputies reported him for allegedly breaking the law to help a wealthy donor, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

The former deputies' accusation that Paxton abused his power to help Paul were at the core of Paxton's impeachment. Lawmakers in the Texas House of Representatives say it was the still-open question of funding a $3.3 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by four of the deputies that sparked the impeachment investigation.

Several of Paxton's former deputies took the witness stand against him. They recounted going to the FBI and testified that the attorney general tried to help Paul fend of a separate FBI investigation

They also testified that Paul employed a woman with whom Paxton had an extramarital affair. Another former employee, Drew Wicker, said Paxton second-in-command later discouraged him from speaking with the FBI.

Paul was indicted in June on charges of making false statements to banks. He has pleaded not guilty and was not called to testify at the impeachment trial.

The federal investigation of Paxton has dragged on for years and was shifted in February from a prosecutors in Texas to ones in Washington, D.C. In August, federal prosecutors began using a grand jury in San Antonio to examine Paxton and Paul's dealings, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of secrecy rules around grand jury proceedings.

One said the grand jury heard from Wicker, Paxton’s former personal aide. At the impeachment trial, Wicker testified that he once heard a contractor tell Paxton he would need to check with “Nate” about the cost of renovations to the attorney general’s Austin home.

Paxton has consistently denied wrongdoing. One of his defense attorneys, Dan Cogdell, acknowledged in August that authorities were still interviewing witnesses but said the “case will go nowhere at the end of the day.”

THE SECURITIES FRAUD CASE

In 2015, Paxton was indicted on charges of defrauding investors in a Dallas-area tech startup by not disclosing he was being paid by the company, called Servergy, to recruit them. He faces five to 99 years in prison if convicted and has pleaded not guilty.

The indictments were handed up just months after Paxton was sworn in as attorney general. He won second and third terms despite them.

Paxton's trial has been delayed by legal debate over whether it should be heard in the Dallas area or Houston, changes in which judge would handle it and a protracted battle over how much the special prosecutors should get paid.

Weeks after the Republican-led Texas House voted to impeach Paxton, the state's high criminal court ruled his trial would proceed in Houston. The judge overseeing it said in August that she would set a trial date after the impeachment trial.

Cogdell said that month that if Paxton were removed from office it would open the possibility of him making a plea agreement in the case.

THE DISCIPLINARY HEARING

Also on hold during Paxton's impeachment trial was an ethics case brought by the state bar.

In 2020, Paxton asked the U.S. Supreme Court to, effectively, overturn then-President Donald Trump's electoral defeat by Joe Biden based on bogus claims of fraud. The high court threw out the request.

Afterward, the State Bar of Texas received a series of complaints alleging that Paxton and a deputy had committed processional misconduct with the suit. The bar didn't initially take up the complaints but later launched an investigation.

Last year, the bar sued seeking unspecified discipline for Paxton and his second-in-command, alleging they were “dishonest" with the Supreme Court.

Paxton dismissed the bar's suits as “meritless” political attacks. The attorney general's office has argued that because it is an executive branch agency and the bar is part of the judicial branch, the cases run afoul of separation of powers under the state constitution.

A judge overseeing the bar's case against the deputy, Brent Webster, accepted this argument. But he was reversed on appeal in July. That month, another court scheduled arguments in the disciplinary case against Paxton only to delay them when it became clear they would fall in the middle of his impeachment trial.

The attorney general's office continued to defend Paxton in the case even after he was suspended from office. If he's found to have violated ethics rules, Paxton faces the prospect of disbarment, suspension, or a lesser punishments.

Would impeachment inquiry shut down with the government? Maybe

Posted on September 16, 2023 by Joan McCarter

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to quell his raucous caucus by telling them they can’t force a government shutdown while continuing their “Biden crime family” investigations and impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. He previewed that argument a few weeks ago during a Fox News interview. “If we shut down, all of government shuts it down—investigations and everything else—it hurts the American public,” he said.

Maybe that’s why he decided to let his rabid weasels loose in an impeachment inquiry, thinking they would be so caught up in the bloodthirst that they wouldn’t want it to be derailed by a shutdown. The problem is that McCarthy’s argument is not entirely true, and plenty of the Republican “investigators” intend to keep on chasing their tails, no matter what.

Some of them didn’t even connect the two things until reporters asked them about it. “I have no idea, I’m hopeful that we don’t have that scenario,” Rep. James Comer told The Messenger. He’s the Oversight Committee chair who has to keep publicly admitting that he’s got nuthin’ on the president, despite devoting months and months to the quest. So, yes, it’s totally believable that Comer didn’t even bother to think about whether his pet investigations might be affected.

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His counterpart in wild-goose chasing, Rep. Jim Jordan, has thought about it. “We’re gonna do our job no matter what happens,” the Judiciary Committee chair said. He threw in, “We’re not looking to shut down the government.” Seems Jim has some catching up to do with his Freedom Caucus colleagues.

What Jordan isn’t saying is that he would be happy to force his committee staff to continue working during a shutdown, even though they wouldn’t be getting paid. Because that’s how it works. Members of Congress get paid during shutdowns because that’s what the Constitution mandates. Their salaries are not included in the annual appropriations for the legislative branch. Unless that appropriations bill passes before Oct. 1 and a shutdown is averted, the people who work in Congress but aren’t elected members won’t get paid.

Members can deem some of their staff to be “essential” and force them to work without pay during shutdowns. In the case of Comer and Jordan, they could very well decide that their committee staffers have to keep working, which they would have to do without pay until the shutdown gets resolved.

“I’ve never seen a situation where there’s a potential shutdown and this thing running along simultaneously,” Rep. Tom Cole told The Messenger. He’s chair of the Rules Committee. “They certainly couldn’t pay the staffers. At some point, people aren’t coming into work for free, as patriotic as they all are.”

Staffers might not keep coming in, but the impeachment inquiry could keep going, according to one analysis from the last time this threat came up, at the end of 2019. The inquiry likely would continue, because it’s not like the staff would be that essential in “investigating” anyway—there’s no evidence to collect, and no actual crime to probe. Comer and Jordan and their buddies are just making it up as they go along anyway. Paid professionals might just get in their way.

Whether they decide to run with the impeachment inquiry anyway depends on just how self-destructive they’re feeling. Because neither of the two things—impeachment or a government shutdown—are popular with voters. Most Americans don’t think impeachment is warranted, and a large majority are opposed to a shutdown.

If a shutdown happens, Republicans will be blamed. If the only thing Congress is doing while many government services are closed is going after Biden on the basis of unproven and ridiculous conspiracy theories, well, McCarthy might as well just hand the keys to the place over to Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Democrats will have run of the place after 2024.

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