Only two of 19 Republican Senators voted in favor of convicting for any article — a stark contrast to the more than 70% of House Republicans who impeached the attorney general in May.
Hopefully he committed some of his various felonies across state lines and we have a way to criminally investigate him with an actual American non-turncoat prosecutor in a blue state.
The Texas Senate on Saturday acquitted Attorney General Ken Paxton of 16 articles of impeachment alleging corruption and bribery, his most artful escape in a career spent courting controversy and skirting consequences of scandal.
Required to attend but barred from deliberating and voting because of her relationship with the accused, she listened stone-faced during the trial as multiple witnesses testified about the attorney general’s infidelity, exposing as a lie his 2018 declaration to his wife and senior aides that the affair was permanently over.
The accusations leveled against him in 21 years of public life ranged from felonious to farcical: that he duped investors to whom he sold stock, profited from inside information on a land deal, made false claims in court about the 2020 presidential election, and purloined another lawyer’s expensive pen.
The findings of the House investigative committee, released in May, were explosive: that Paxton had likely broken numerous state laws, misspent office funds and misused his power to benefit Paul, his friend and political donor.
They grew troubled that Paxton shared Paul’s distrust of police and brushed off their warnings to distance himself from the real estate investor, whose business empire was crumbling and who was the subject of a federal criminal investigation.
This discovery, coupled with the realization that an outside lawyer hired by Paxton, without their knowledge, had sent subpoenas to banks that had made loans to Paul’s businesses, prompted the whistleblowers to report the attorney general to the FBI.
The original article contains 2,204 words, the summary contains 245 words. Saved 89%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!