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"Former chief of staff for AG’s office details alarm over Ken Paxton’s alleged affair" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
The Texas Tribune is your source for in-depth reporting on the Ken Paxton impeachment trial. Readers make that possible. Support authoritative Texas journalism with a donation now.
Attorney General Ken Paxton’s alleged extramarital affair came up for the first time at length Monday in his impeachment trial.
Katherine “Missy” Cary, the former chief of staff in the attorney general’s office, testified how she came to learn about the affair and how Paxton ultimately confessed to it. But perhaps most relevant to the case, Cary testified how she warned Paxton it could make him vulnerable to bribery, an allegation central to his impeachment.
The dramatic testimony came as Paxton’s wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, listened on from the Senate floor.
“My heart broke for her,” Cary said of Angela Paxton, who is disqualified from voting in the trial but has to attend.
The alleged affair is referenced in one of the articles of impeachment that is being tried. The article accuses Paxton of bribery because he “benefited from Nate Paul’s employment of a woman with whom Paxton was having an extramarital affair.”
House impeachment managers allege that Paxton, driven by his desire to continue his affair and hide it from his wife and religious voters, went to impeachable and criminal lengths to help Paul. In exchange, they allege, Paul hired Olson at his company so that she could move from San Antonio to Austin.
While Paxton's alleged affair has increasingly taken center stage since the House impeached him in June, Cary marked the first time a witness provided firsthand knowledge of it — and in painful detail. Upon cross-examination, Paxton lawyer Tony Buzbee sought to stir doubt about the veracity of some of Cary's early observations of the alleged affair and downplayed its relevance to the case.
[Ken Paxton tried to hide his affair from his wife and voters. It may be his undoing.]
"Imagine if we impeached everybody here in Austin that had had an affair," Buzbee said. "We’d be impeaching for the next 100 years, wouldn’t we?"
Cary testified that her knowledge of the alleged affair all began in the spring of 2018 when she was eating lunch alone at Galaxy Cafe in Austin. She overheard a woman next to her having a conversation that troubled her, suggesting the woman was conveying “very personal” information about Ken Paxton. Cary said she took her concerns to the attorney general, who said the woman was the real estate agent selling his condo in Austin.
But later that spring, Cary said she saw the same woman at an official event in San Antonio and saw her name tag: Laura Olson.
Cary said she then learned about the relationship from other people in the office and felt “surprised” Paxton had lied to her about who Olson was. The relationship was impacting staff morale, Cary added, with Angela Paxton calling the office to try to track down her husband and staffers feeling “uncomfortable answering those questions.”
Cary eventually had a meeting with Paxton where they discussed the legal and “ethical implications of a secret affair,” she said. Cary said they discussed that such conduct could “open one up to bribery and misuse of office” — allegations at the center of his impeachment.
In that meeting, Cary said Paxton confirmed he was having an affair but did not say whether it was with Olson. He was “contrite and he listened to what I had to say very carefully,” Cary recalled.
In September 2018, Paxton and his wife convened a meeting with top aides where he confessed to the affair, Cary said. She described it as an awkward and emotional meeting. Angela Paxton was “sad and embarrassed” and cried, Cary said. Cary said she hugged Angela Paxton and told her she was sorry this had happened to her.
After that meeting, Cary said, she believed such behavior was “out of [Paxton’s] life for good.”
But months later in 2019, Cary said, Paxton told her the affair was continuing. Cary said Paxton expressed that he "still loved Mrs. Olson" and wanted Cary, as the chief of staff, to "be more accommodating" of it when it came to things like his security detail.
Cary said she told Paxton "quite bluntly it wasn't my business who he was sleeping with, but that when things boiled over in to the office," it became a concern to her. In Cary's telling, that comment enraged Paxton, who turned "red in the face," raised his voice and stormed out of her office.
Buzbee took an aggressive tack in cross-examining Cary. After initially trying to put her at ease, he launched into an interrogation of her account of how she first came to learn about Olson. Buzbee accused Cary of getting wrong the kind of car Olson had at Galaxy Cafe, saying Olson has "never owned a red car." Cary said she never claimed the car she saw belonged to Olson.
"I guess I'm trying to figure out how good is your memory," Buzbee said.
Buzbee did not explicitly mention Paxton's alleged adultery. But he cast such misbehavior in religious terms, first asking Cary if she attended church. She initially resisted answering, questioning whether it was an appropriate question. But Buzbee insisted it was relevant and asked her, in an allusion to God, if there was "only one person who was ever perfect." She agreed that is the case in her belief system.
"All have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God, right?" Buzbee asked, to which Cary agreed. "Sometimes people make stupid mistakes, right?"
That is when Buzbee raised the possibility of impeaching anybody in Austin who has had an affair. Cary declined to respond to the hypothetical, saying, "I don't think I should answer this question in this chamber, particularly."
"Just because somebody has an affair doesn't mean that they're a quote criminal, does it?" Buzbee asked, to which Cary said she "would not associate that directly."
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.
As House Republicans gear up to impeach President Joe Biden, Rep. Jamie Raskin has released a thorough statement debunking the supposed basis for an impeachment.
“House Republicans constantly insist that they are investigating President Biden, and not his adult son,” Raskin said in the statement. He continued:
In that case, we can form an obvious judgment on their investigation: it has been a complete and total bust—an epic flop in the history of congressional investigations. The voluminous evidence they have gathered, including thousands of pages of bank records and suspicious activity reports and hours of testimony from witnesses, overwhelmingly demonstrates no wrongdoing by President Biden and further debunks Republicans’ conspiracy theories.
Fear not: Raskin has the receipts. Among the 12,000 pages of subpoenaed bank records, more than 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports, and multiple witnesses interviewed, including two former business associates of Hunter Biden, Republicans have found:
No bank records showing payments to the president.
No suspicious activity reports alleging potential misconduct by the president or that he is involved in his son’s business dealings.
No witnesses testifying to misconduct by the president.
But none of that has stopped Republicans like House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer from claiming that the opposite is true. “We’ve got a President of the United States who’s taken millions and millions of dollars from bad people and bad countries around the world,” Comer has claimed, according to Raskin’s statement, even though Comer has no actual evidence of that.
In fact, as Raskin shows, lots of Republicans know Comer hasn’t found anything meaningful. Here are just a few examples:
Breitbart editor Emma Jo-Morris criticized Chairman Comer for promoting bribery allegations against President Biden even though he has “not shown [proof] to the public,” while Steve Bannon also lambasted Chairman Comer for failing to provide evidence to support his bribery allegations, saying of Chairman Comer, “You’re not serious. It’s all performative.” [...]
Rep. Don Bacon acknowledged that Republicans have failed to prove any wrongdoing by President Biden, “If you wanna get any progress in the Senate, you’re gonna have to show not potential wrongdoing, but wrongdoing. I don’t think we’re there yet.” Rep. Bacon also said that he thinks “we need to have more concrete evidence to go down” the impeachment inquiry path.
Sen. Ron Johnson conceded that Republicans have not found any “direct evidence” or “hard proof” of wrongdoing by President Biden. [...]
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said, “I don’t know what the basis of this call for impeachment is. It just sounds like a lot of noise to me.” Sen. Capito also responded "I do not" when asked if she thinks there is evidence to support an impeachment.
Sen. Mitt Romney acknowledged, “I haven’t seen any evidence” that meets the “constitutional test for impeachment.” [...]
An anonymous GOP lawmaker offered the following assessment to CNN: “There’s no evidence that Joe Biden got money, or that Joe Biden, you know, agreed to do something so that Hunter could get money. There’s just no evidence of that. And they can’t impeach without that evidence. And I don’t I don’t think the evidence exists.”
It goes on. Those are six of the 19 bullet points Raskin assembles to show that even many prominent Republicans don’t think Comer has assembled enough evidence to impeach Biden.
The problem is, Fox News will always give Comer a platform to lie about what his own investigations have found. That’s the plan to impeach Biden: Yell again and again that he has taken millions of dollars in illicit payoffs, and rely on those claims to make headlines while the truth is reported as an afterthought. This is a challenge for the media (or the non-right-wing media, anyway): Report on House Republican claims with the truth first and foremost, and make clear the fact that their lies are lies from the start. So far, it’s not doing so hot. When House Republicans move forward with impeachment, the traditional media is going to need to raise its game.
Sign the petition: No more wasted taxpayer money on frivolous GOP hearings.
Why does it seem like Republicans have such a hard time recruiting Senate candidates who actually live in the states they want to run in? We're discussing this strange but persistent phenomenon on this week's edition of "The Downballot." The latest example is former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who's been spending his time in Florida since leaving the House in 2015, but he's not the only one. Republican Senate hopefuls in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Montana, and Wisconsin all have questionable ties to their home states—a problem that Democrats have gleefully exploited in recent years. (Remember Dr. Oz? Of course you do.)
By Patrick Svitek and Zach Despart
The Texas Tribune
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"Texas Senate rejects all motions to dismiss Ken Paxton impeachment charges" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
The Texas Tribune is your source for in-depth reporting on the Ken Paxton impeachment trial. Readers make that possible. Support authoritative Texas journalism with a donation now.
The Texas Senate on Tuesday rejected all of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to dismiss the articles of impeachment against him, moving forward with the first removal proceeding against a statewide elected official in more than a century.
The rapid-fire series of votes on 16 pretrial motions made clear that senators want to at least hear the evidence against Paxton before deciding his fate. And the vote counts provided an early gauge of how willing GOP senators may be to remove a fellow Republican from statewide office.
While the House vote to impeach Paxton was overwhelming and bipartisan, the Senate offers a different political landscape. Its Republican members are more in line with Paxton's brand of conservatism, and he has more personal connections in the chamber where he once served and his wife remains a member.
The pretrial motions required a majority vote, but the most support a motion to dismiss received was 10 out of 30 senators — all Republicans — and that motion sought to throw out a single article.
Six Republican senators supported every motion in a nod of support for Paxton: Paul Bettencourt of Houston, Donna Campbell of New Braunfels, Brandon Creighton of Conroe, Bob Hall of Edgewood, Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham and Tan Parker of Flower Mound. Half of those senators — Bettencourt, Campbell and Parker — are up for reelection next year.
Five Republicans — Brian Birdwell of Granbury, Bryan Hughes of Mineola, Charles Perry of Lubbock, Charles Schwertner of Georgetown and Kevin Sparks of Midland — voted in favor of at least one motion to dismiss.
The remaining seven Republicans voted with all 12 Democrats against each motion. Those senators were Pete Flores of Pleasanton, Kelly Hancock of North Richland Hills, Joan Huffman of Houston, Mayes Middleton of Galveston, Robert Nichols of Jacksonville and Drew Springer of Muenster.
Setting the tone, the Senate denied Paxton’s first two motions by votes of 24-6 and 22-8.
The first motion asked the Senate to throw out every article of impeachment for lack of evidence. Twelve Republicans joined all Senate Democrats in the vote to essentially move forward with a trial.
The second motion asked senators to exclude evidence from before January, when Paxton’s current four-year term began. That motion struck at the heart of one of Paxton’s main arguments — that he cannot be impeached for any actions allegedly taken before he was reelected last year. Paxton's defenders have repeatedly cited the so-called forgiveness doctrine to criticize the House impeachment as illegal.
The House impeached Paxton in May, alleging a yearslong pattern of lawbreaking and misconduct. He was immediately suspended from his job, and the Senate trial, which started at 9 a.m. Tuesday, will determine whether he is permanently removed from office.
There were two dozen pretrial motions. A simple majority was required to approve 16 of them because they sought to dismissal all or some of the articles of impeachment. The presiding officer, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, was allowed to rule on the other motions unilaterally.
Notably, Patrick granted Paxton's motion that prevents the suspended attorney general from being forced to testify in the trial. The House impeachment managers had opposed the motion, arguing that if Paxton wanted to avoid self-incrimination, he could take advantage of his Fifth Amendment right from the witness stand.
As the Senate proceeds to a trial, a two-thirds vote is required to convict Paxton. That means that if all 12 Democrats vote to convict, half the remaining 18 Republican with a vote would have to join them. Paxton's wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, is disqualified from voting but allowed to attend the trial.
Trial deliberations are private, so the process of voting on the pretrial motions followed a dry routine Tuesday morning. Senators submitted their votes in writing, the Senate secretary announced each senators' votes from the front mic, reading them off in random order, and Patrick verified each vote from the dais.
The motion to dismiss that got the most support — 10 votes‚ sought to individually dismiss Article 8. That article accuses Paxton of disregarding his official duties by pursuing a taxpayer-funded settlement with former top staffers who reported concerns about his relationship with Paul to the FBI in 2020.
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.
Billionaires, burner phones, alleged bribes: The impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is going to test the will of Republicans senators to oust not only one of their own, but a firebrand who has helped drive the state's hard turn to the right for years.
The historic proceedings set to start in the state Senate Tuesday are the most serious threat yet to one of Texas' most powerful figures after nine years engulfed by criminal charges, scandal, and accusations of corruption. If convicted, Paxton—just the third official in Texas' nearly 200-year history to be impeached—could be removed from office.
Witnesses called to testify could include Paxton and a woman with whom he has acknowledged having an extramarital affair. Members of the public hoping to watch from the gallery will have to line up for passes. And conservative activists have already bought up TV airtime and billboards, pressuring senators to acquit one of former President Donald Trump's biggest defenders.
“It's a very serious event but it's a big-time show,” said Bill Miller, a longtime Austin lobbyist and a friend of Paxton. “Any way you cut it, it's going to have the attention of anyone and everyone.”
The build-up to the trial has widened divisions among Texas Republicans that reflect the wider fissures roiling the party nationally heading into the 2024 election.
At the fore of recent Texas policies are hardline measures to stop migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, battles over what is taught in public schools, and restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights—many of which are championed loudest in the Senate, where Republicans hold a dominant 19-12 majority and have Paxton's fate in their hands.
The Senate has long been a welcoming place for Paxton. His wife, Angela, is a state senator, although she is barred from voting in the trial. Paxton also was a state senator before becoming attorney general in 2015 and still has entanglements in the chamber, including with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who will preside over the trial and loaned $125,000 to Paxton's reelection campaign.
If all 12 Democrats vote to convict Paxton, they would still need at least nine Republicans on their side. Or the Senate could vote by a simple majority to dismiss the charges altogether. But it was a GOP-dominated House that decided by an overwhelming majority that Paxton should be impeached.
“You’re seeing a fracture within the party right now,” said Matt Langston, a Republican political consultant in Texas. “This is going to impact the leadership and the party for a long time.”
The trial also appears to have heightened Paxton’s legal risks. The case against him largely centers on his relationship with Nate Paul, an Austin real estate developer who was indicted this summer after being accused of making false statements to banks to secure $170 million in loans.
Last month, federal prosecutors in Washington kicked a long-running investigation of Paxton into a higher gear when they began using a grand jury in San Antonio to examine his dealings with Paul, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of secrecy rules around grand jury proceedings. The grand jury’s role was first reported by the Austin American-Statesman.
Chris Toth, the former executive director of the National Association of Attorneys General, said Paxton has for years weathered scandals unique among top state lawyers. He said the outcome of the trial will send a message about what is acceptable to elected officials across the country.
Impeachment managers in the GOP-controlled Texas House filed nearly 4,000 pages of exhibits ahead of the trial, including accusations that Paxton hid the use of multiple cellphones and reveled in other perks of office.
“There’s very much a vile and insidious level of influence that Ken Paxton exerts through continuing to get away with his conduct,” Toth said.
Part of Paxton's political durability is his alignment with Trump, and this was never more apparent than when Paxton joined efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Like Trump, Paxton says he is a victim of politically motivated investigations.
But James Dickey, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, said the base of the GOP sees Paxton’s impeachment as different from legal troubles facing Trump.
“Exclusively, the actions against President Trump are from Democrat elected officials and so it can’t avoid having more of a partisan tone,” he said. “Therefore, Republican voters have more concern and frustration with it.”
By Chuck Lindell and James Barragán The Texas Tribune
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The Texas House adopted 20 articles of impeachment against state Attorney General Ken Paxton in late May on a 121-23 vote, with 60 Republicans in favor as 23 opposed. Paxton was immediately suspended from office, without pay, upon approval of House Resolution 2377.
When the Senate adopted its rules for the trial, however, senators elected to hear evidence on 16 articles — holding four in abeyance that were largely related to 2015 criminal charges against Paxton for private business deals in 2011 and 2012. At the end of the trial, a majority of senators can vote to dismiss the four remaining articles, but if the motion to dismiss is rejected, the presiding officer will set a trial date on those four accusations.
With the Senate sitting as a court of impeachment beginning Monday, these 16 articles will form the basis of Paxton's trial:
Paxton violated the duties of his office by failing to protect a charitable organization by directing employees to intervene in a lawsuit between the nonprofit Mitte Foundation and Austin real estate investor Nate Paul, a Paxton friend and political donor. “Paxton harmed the Mitte Foundation in an effort to benefit Paul,” the resolution said.
Paxton misused his official power to issue written legal opinions to help Paul avoid foreclosure sales of properties owned by Paul and his businesses. Paxton concealed his actions by soliciting state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, to seek the attorney general’s opinion as a “straw requestor,” the resolution said, adding that Paxton also directed employees to reverse their legal conclusions in ways that helped Paul.
Paxton misused his official power to administer the state’s public information laws by directing employees to act contrary to the law on an open records request for Department of Public Safety documents and in another unspecified case.
Paxton misused his power to administer public information laws to obtain previously undisclosed information held by his office “for the purpose of providing the information to the benefit of Nate Paul,” the resolution said.
Paxton misused his official powers by violating the laws regarding how outside attorneys should be appointed. Paxton hired Brandon Cammack, a lawyer of five years, to investigate a “baseless complaint” made by Paul, who had accused federal and state investigators of improperly searching his home and businesses. Cammack responded by issuing 30 grand jury subpoenas in an effort to help Paul, the resolution said.
Paxton violated his duties of office by firing or retaliating against employees in violation of the Texas Whistleblowers Act, which protects public employees who make good-faith reports of potentially illegal action to law enforcement.
“Paxton terminated the employees without good cause or due process and in retaliation for reporting his illegal acts and improper conduct,” the resolution said. “Furthermore, Paxton engaged in a public and private campaign to impugn the employees’ professional reputations or prejudice their future employment.”
Paxton misused public resources by directing employees to conduct a “sham investigation” into the whistleblowers’ complaints, leading the attorney general’s office to publish “a lengthy written report containing false or misleading statements in Paxton’s defense.”
In August 2021, the attorney general’s office issued an unsigned, 374-page internal report clearing him of wrongdoing in the allegations made by the fired employees.
Paxton misused his official powers by “concealing his wrongful acts in connection with the whistleblower complaints.” To settle the whistleblowers’ lawsuit, Paxton agreed to pay them $3.3 million from public funds. The agreement “conspicuously delayed the discovery of facts and testimony at trial, to Paxton’s advantage” and deprived voters of the opportunity to make an informed decision in the 2022 election for attorney general, the resolution said.
Paxton engaged in bribery in violation of Article 16 of the Texas Constitution when he benefited from Paul’s decision to employ a woman “with whom Paxton was having an extramarital affair.”
“Paul received favorable legal assistance from, or specialized access to, the office of the attorney general,” the resolution said.
Paxton engaged in bribery in violation of Article 16 of the Texas Constitution when Paul provided extensive renovations to Paxton’s Austin home. In return, Paul received favorable legal help from Paxton’s agency.
Paxton made, or caused others to make, multiple false or misleading statements in his office’s response to the whistleblowers’ claims in an effort to mislead the public and public officials. In August 2021, the attorney general’s office issued an unsigned, 374-page internal report clearing him of wrongdoing in the allegations made by the fired employees.
While in office, Paxton acted with others to conspire, or attempt to conspire, to commit the crimes described in the other articles.
Paxton misused his official powers by causing employees to perform services for his benefit and the benefit of others.
The committee’s investigators said Paxton had diverted employees to perform work that benefited Paul, costing the state at least $72,000 in taxpayer-funded labor. He also hired Cammack for $25,000.
Paxton violated the Texas Constitution, his oaths of office, plus statutes and public policy against public officials acting against the public interest.
Paxton engaged in private and public misconduct, described in the articles, that “indicate his unfitness for office,” the resolution said.
Paxton subverted the lawful operation of Texas government by using, misusing or failing to use his official powers and obstructed the fair and impartial administration of justice, bringing the attorney general’s office “into scandal and disrepute,” which harmed the public’s confidence in the state’s government.
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.
One of the many characteristics of The First Former President to be Indicted (Twice Thrice, Four Freaking Times, for now) is that he sucks all the oxygen out of the room of our national public discourse (not to mention that he just sucks in general). Another is that he’s a fascist who’d destroy our democracy without a second thought in order to save his own skin, but we’ll leave that aside for a moment. This chaos agent’s actions reverberate throughout our politics in a way no American figure has before—not even Richard Nixon, who resigned from the presidency in disgrace in the aftermath of Watergate.
That scandal brings to mind another comparison between then and now, namely how differently leading Republicans, in particular those in Congress, have reacted to the leader of their party facing investigation and accountability for his behavior. Let me start with a little hint: The Trumpist Republicans of today don’t come out of this comparison looking very good.
RELATED STORY: House Republicans swiftly act to obstruct on Trump’s behalf
After The Man Who Lost an Election and Tried to Steal it made his first court appearance and entered a plea in response to the deadly serious national security-related charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in the classified documents case, we saw responses from a broad array of Republican officials. Overall, it ain’t pretty. The same goes for the responses to the Jan. 6-related Trump indictments as well as to the indictments in Georgia offered by most of the Republicans running, in theory at least, against Trump for the GQP presidential nomination, along with other top members of the Trumpist party.
There are some exceptions, no doubt, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Bill Cassidy, and Mitt Romney, Rep. Don Bacon, and Gov. Chris Sununu. Within the Republican presidential field only several have spoken out strongly, but none of them exactly qualify as a frontrunner. Chris Christie said Trump “has been a one-man crime wave. Look, he’s earned every one of [the indictments]. If you look at it, every one of these is self-inflicted.” Will Hurd shared, “Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.” Asa Hutchinson said, “I have said from the beginning that Donald Trump’s actions on January 6 should disqualify him from ever being president again.” The other candidates have been fairly mealy-mouthed at best (even after the fourth indictment, which caused little change in how they talked about the erstwhile frontrunner), with the Nikki Haley versus Nikki Haley debate being particularly pathetic. Meanwhile, a number of them have stated they’d even pardon the insurrectionist-in-chief.
Given his slavish loyalty along with the completely false presentations in support of his boss he made prior to the 2020 election, the assessments former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr offered on the documents case as well as on the Jan. 6 indictments carry perhaps the most weight. However, as Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson so helpfully reminds us, he remains a “sleazeball.”
But for the most part, the sycophantic (not to mention dangerous to our democracy) behavior of congressional Republicans is both awful and yet exactly what you’d expect, in particular from the MAGA caucus over in the House. It doesn’t get much more moronic than Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was asked whether it was perhaps problematic that the disgraced former president was knowingly storing national security secrets next to the toilet. He replied that “a bathroom door locks.” (Hey, Kev, you know it only locks from the inside, right?) Looks like he’s locked the remnants of his integrity behind such a door and has thrown away the key. Additionally, his comments regarding the Jan. 6 indictments were less laughable, but if anything more cynical.
Regarding the attempt by McCarthy and the other Trump stooges to attack the indictment by drawing false parallels to investigations of President Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton, Jesse Wegman of The New York Times thoroughly dismantled that malarkey one bald-faced lie at a time. What’s so harmful is that Trump—the most prodigious liar in American history—has set a precedent that Republicans who lie will never be punished by their own party. Would there have been a George Santos or a shady grifter like Vivek Ramaswamy in our politics if there hadn’t already been a Donald Trump, who has led with lies and deceit right from the start of his public career?
Moving forward, will we see more members of what remains of the Party of Trump actually reject their pro-crime, anti-law enforcement stance and turn on their leader as more evidence comes into public view? That’s a key question for the present.
But how about the past? Specifically, how did Republicans measure up on that very question a half-century ago, the last time a president from their party behaved criminally and put our constitutional democracy at risk? To start with, it's not as simple as saying that Republicans back then immediately turned on Nixon once reporting made clear by spring 1973 that the White House was engaged in a cover-up. However, during the following year, two profoundly important developments took place.
First, Republicans in the House backed the impeachment inquiry's subpoena efforts. Nixon had claimed that executive privilege gave him the right to withhold recordings of Oval Office conversations along with other relevant evidence. Michigan Republican Rep. Edward Hutchinson, the ranking member of his party on the House Judiciary Committee that ultimately voted to impeach Nixon, utterly rejected such a claim, stating that “executive privilege, in the face of an impeachment inquiry, must fail.”
The House agreed overwhelmingly, and in a vote of 410-4 (!) gave the committee the authority to subpoena whatever it felt necessary. The four no votes were all Republican. Those subpoenas resulted in the production of the tapes that ultimately brought down a president. Second, when that overwhelming evidence came out, House and Senate Republicans assessed it fairly and told Nixon he had to go.
Garrett Graff, who wrote the recent book “Watergate: A New History,” offered the following summary to The New York Times: “In 1972 to 1974, the Republicans participated as good-faith members of the process. They saw their roles as legislators first and Republicans second.” Regarding the charges leveled against a president from their own party, “they definitely were skeptical” at first; however, ultimately “they followed the facts where they led.”
One separate but related point of comparison concerns the media. During Watergate, most Americans got their information from outlets that reported, well, the news. Now a good chunk of Republican voters soak up propaganda from sources like Fox, which just this June shamelessly and without any factual basis for doing so characterized the elected president of the United States as a “wannabe dictator.” (At least the producer who was responsible resigned three days later, but the damage was done.) That’s not good for our democracy.
Getting back to the politicians, Garrett further explained that when Nixon’s own second-in-command, then-Vice President Spiro Agnew, went after his boss’ enemies, he focused his ire “mainly against the press, not the F.B.I. or the special prosecutor.” Trump, on the other hand, has assailed our entire system of justice. He called Jack Smith a “deranged lunatic” and a “psycho;” referred to “the ‘Thugs’ from the Department of Injustice;” slandered Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who filed the charges against him in Georgia, by calling her a racist; and attacked Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the Jan. 6 case, as “highly partisan” and “VERY BIASED AND UNFAIR.” Ohio State law professor Joshua Dressler stated, “This could be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate Judge Chutkan.” Not even the Nixon White House went that far. Trump’s allies have shown themselves to be equally erratic—he sets the example and others follow it blindly—with Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona going all the way to no sense left at all.
Beyond Biggs, we’ve already seen violent rhetoric spewing forth from Trump supporters, along with threats of violence credible enough to lead to criminal charges. Unfortunately we can expect more of this as his trials move forward. Fuck a L’Orange himself has already incited one violent insurrection, and that was just to keep his day job. Do we really think he’ll hold back when the stakes are a prison sentence? That’s one punishment he won’t be able to buy his way out of.
Because we’ve discussed Republicans acting in a bipartisan fashion during Watergate and contrasted that against the overwhelming majority of Republicans in the Trump era, it’s important to also address how Democrats acted during the investigation and impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. First, yes, Democrats were unified in opposing Clinton’s impeachment and removal from office, but there are fundamental differences between what happened then and what Trump has done over the past few years.
Most importantly, Clinton was investigated for private behavior. Trump (and Nixon), on the other hand, were investigated and, in the Tangerine Palpatine’s case, impeached for abuses of office that rendered them unfit to serve (though Trump obviously has some private behavior he’s on the hook for as well). Both demonstrated themselves to be threats to the rule of law.
Second, Robert Fiske, the initial, nonpartisan special counsel assigned to investigate Clinton, was unjustly removed by a panel of Republican judges and replaced by hyper-partisan Ken Starr. Fiske had at that point already concluded that there was no criminality in the Whitewater or Vince Foster cases, which happened to be the matters he was charged with investigating. Republicans in the House ultimately impeached Clinton over wrongdoing that would never have occurred without Starr coming in and forcing him to testify under oath.
Democrats were right to vote against impeachment and conviction there because not only did Clinton’s behavior, wrong though it was, not rise to the level of necessitating the overturning of the will of the people, the Starr process was partisan from the start. And the American public consistently agreed with the Democrats’ stance. In other words, just as Republicans acted on the side of our Constitution by working with Democrats during Watergate, Democrats did likewise by opposing Republicans during the Starr/Clinton business.
Getting back to the current cast of characters, Jackie Calmes wrote a year ago that Trump-era Republicans—as well as the Republican voters who keep rewarding them in primary elections—had already failed the American people by letting Trump off the hook for the unconscionable crimes he committed while in office. Will they, as a party, take this final opportunity provided by Smith and Willis to redeem themselves? Don’t hold your breath.
Here’s one thing we can say about how leading Republicans acted in Nixon’s time—a time when, as Calmes pointed out, “the truth had a common meaning to both parties.” Back then they knew when the game was up, and they made sure Nixon wouldn’t end up being able to raise $7 million for another White House run off a mugshot.
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Were Watergate-era Republicans in Congress reading the political tea leaves? They couldn’t ignore them, that’s for sure (and neither will the Republicans of 2023, many of whom will only turn on Trump if and when it suits them politically). But beyond the polls, enough Nixon-era Republicans at least recognized the gravity of what their leader, the president of the United States, had done. They were prepared to join with Democrats in Congress to remove him from office. They sealed his political fate. They put democracy over partisanship. Country over party.
On the other hand, when Putin’s puppet got impeached the first time, Mitt Romney was the only Republican senator to vote for conviction. The second time around, he was joined by six others. I guess that represents progress? On the other hand, of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over Jan. 6, only a paltry two made it back into the next Congress. (Four retired, including Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, while four were defeated in GQP primaries.) Either way, I have not a single doubt that in the unimaginable hypothetical circumstance where a Democratic president had behaved exactly as Trump did, every single Republican member of the House would have voted to impeach, and every single Senate Republican would have voted to convict. Oh, and so would have every Democrat in their respective chambers. That’s another pretty damn important point of comparison to make here.
As it stands right now, congressional Republicans have no official responsibility for what becomes of Donald Trump, either criminally or politically. His criminal fate rests in the hands of the folks serving on various juries in Florida, New York, Georgia, D.C., and who knows where else, while his political fate, at least at first, is in the hands of Republican primary voters.
When it comes to moral responsibility, congressional Republicans as a whole showed absolutely none of it when they were charged with assessing whether Fuck a L’Orange should have been impeached and removed from the presidency. If they had acted responsibly, maybe our country wouldn’t be stuck where we are now: in a room without any oxygen.
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Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)
By Patrick Svitek The Texas Tribune
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Political pressure is intensifying around Republican state senators who will serve as the jurors in the impeachment trial of suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Paxton’s allies are singling out a half dozen senators for lobbying. A mysterious entity is airing TV ads and sending out mailers targeting certain senators. And an influential establishment group, as well as former Gov. Rick Perry, are urging senators to oppose efforts to effectively stop the trial before it starts.
“Anyone that votes against Ken Paxton in this impeachment is risking their entire political career and we will make sure that is the case,” Jonathan Stickland, who runs the pro-Paxton Defend Texas Liberty PAC, said Thursday in a media appearance.
The high-stakes trial of Texas’ top legal official is scheduled to start Sept. 5. It comes after the House impeached Paxton in May, accusing him of a yearslong pattern of misconduct and lawbreaking centered on his relationship with Nate Paul, an Austin real-estate investor and Paxton campaign donor. Paxton, a Republican in his third term, was immediately suspended from office, and the trial will determine whether he will be permanently removed.
His fate lies in the hands of the 30 senators who can vote in the trial. (His wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, is recused.) Removal requires a two-thirds vote, meaning that if all 12 Democrats vote to convict Paxton, nine of the 18 remaining Republicans would have to cross over to force him out. Furthermore, only a majority vote is required for senators to grant a pretrial motion to dismiss, which would come before any opening statements. While that would require 16 of the 18 voting Republicans – assuming all Democrats oppose it — it may be a tempting option for GOP senators who do not want to go through with a weeks-long trial where the spotlight on them will burn even brighter.
Paxton’s supporters have touted him as the tip of the spear in Texas’ battles against President Joe Biden’s administration. The impeachment, they argue, is a plot by the Republican establishment to take Paxton out after failing to defeat him in his reelection campaign last year.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is presiding over the trial, imposed a strict gag order on senators that largely prohibits them from commenting on the case publicly. Shortly after Paxton’s impeachment in May, several GOP senators issued identical or similar statements telling constituents they could not discuss the case but welcomed their feedback.
Paxton’s allies have gotten more aggressive in recent days. On Tuesday, Dallas County GOP activist Lauren Davis went on the show of Steve Bannon, the former Donald Trump strategist, and urged viewers to apply pressure to six GOP senators: Kelly Hancock of North Richland Hills, Bryan Hughes of Mineola, Charles Schwertner of Georgetown, Charles Perry of Lubbock, Drew Springer of Muenster and Mayes Middleton of Galveston. She said Middleton was especially important to lobby given that he was a top donor to Paxton’s primary challengers in 2022.
“We're gonna make all these six famous in the days ahead,” Bannon said.
Earlier in the week, Davis used her group, Moms Love Freedom, to launch a petition asking the Senate to dismiss the articles of impeachment “with prejudice.”
Davis was the 2022 Republican nominee for Dallas County judge and is currently running for Dallas County GOP chair, challenging an incumbent. She shares a political consultant, Axiom Strategies, with Paxton.
The pressure ramped up more Wednesday, when a new group began airing TV ads targeting certain senators before the Republican presidential primary debate on Fox News. One commercial targets Schwertner and asks viewers to call him and “tell him to stand up to the left and stop the impeachment of our attorney general.”
The group, San Jacinto 2023, ran $31,000 in ads Wednesday and was set to air another $6,000 in ads on Thursday, all on Fox News, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. While it was not immediately clear which senators were all targeted, the ad buy was in the Abilene, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Waco and San Antonio markets.
On Friday, it also surfaced that the group was also sending out mailers that encourage people to call their senator and "tell [them] to end the sham impeachment."
San Jacinto 2023 is a Virginia-based corporation that was formed June 28, according to records in the state. Other records show the group uses a media buyer, Ax Media, that is part of Axiom Strategies, Paxton’s political consulting firm. Those records list the group’s treasurer as Nancy Rennaker, who is listed online as a "non-attorney professional" at The Gober Group, an Austin-based law firm that Paxton has used.
Rennaker did not respond to a request for comment before deadline. But after the publication of this story, she clarified that she is an independent contractor for multiple companies and that she is doing bookkeeping for San Jacinto 2023 for RightSide Compliance, not The Gober Group.
Then on Thursday, the deep-pocketed GOP group Texans for Lawsuit Reform issued a rare public statement on the impeachment process. The group, which heavily funded one of Paxton’s primary challengers in 2022, reiterated it “had nothing to do with” his impeachment, a day after the Dallas Morning News reported that Paxton’s lawyers planned to call TLR founder Richard Weekley as a witness.
But what came next was more notable. The group, which was sitting on a $33 million warchest as of June 30, made clear it expected senators to oppose the pretrial motions to dismiss — or anything else that could derail a full-blown trial.
“There is an ongoing effort underway to intimidate the Senators into abandoning their constitutional obligations and acquitting Paxton before the trial even begins and the evidence has been presented,” the statement said. “These efforts are disrespectful of the constitutional impeachment process and insulting to the integrity of the Texas Senate.”
“TLR expects the Senate will conduct a fair, open and thorough trial and that each Senator will make her or his decision solely on the evidence presented,” the statement added, putting an emphasis on “solely.”
The statement was only attributed to Texans for Lawsuit Reform and not any specific representative of the group.
By the end of Thursday, Perry was also weighing in with a similar message to that of TLR. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Perry condemned fellow Republicans who he said were trying to "delegitimize" the process and called for a "full and fair trial" in the Senate.
"We’ve come this far in the process, and it’s critical that the Senate sees it through to the end," wrote Perry, who is close with Patrick. "That means a fair trial that allows both sides to lay out all the facts and gives senators the opportunity to vote based on the evidence."
Such interventions are likely to further inflame tension with Paxton and his allies, who have long theorized the Republican establishment, especially TLR, is willing to do whatever it takes to get him out of office.
That became clearer when Davis returned to Bannon’s show Thursday and elaborated on why she named those six. She said four of them — Hughes, Middleton, Perry and Springer — may be listening to political consultants who have “vendettas” against Paxton and noted all four share a consultant who previously worked for Paxton.
Davis’ appeared to be a reference to Jordan Berry, an Austin-based consultant who resigned from Paxton’s campaign in 2020 after senior officials in his office asked federal law enforcement to probe Paxton’s relationship with Paul. Berry declined to comment.
Davis appeared on the show jointly with Stickland, a former state representative whose PAC has been a top defender of Paxton. It has already put up billboards and sent out text messages attacking House Republicans who supported Paxton’s impeachment.
“We’re spending millions of dollars,” Stickland said. “We think this is a huge fight.”
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.