A Republican-led Texas house committee recommended Thursday that state attorney general Ken Paxton be impeached after a monthslong investigation into his alleged abuses of office.
The house investigative committee voted unanimously to recommend Paxton’s impeachment. A vote on the recommendation could come as soon as Friday, according to the Associated Press. A two-thirds vote of the state’s 150-member house of representatives would be required to impeach.
If the house votes to impeach Paxton, a Republican, he would be removed from office temporarily while facing trial in the state senate.
House Republicans had been investigating Paxton for months but publicly announced the probe only on Tuesday.
Paxton has faced FBI investigation into allegations that he used his office to help a donor.
He has admitted to violating state securities law in 2014 by not registering as an investment adviser while soliciting clients and was indicted the next year on felony securities charges by a grand jury near Dallas after being accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts and has yet to stand trial.
Among his other alleged offenses was accepting $100,000 for a legal-defense fund from an executive whose company was under investigation by his office for Medicaid fraud. Paxton also hired a man to a high-ranking job in his office whose parent had donated $50,000 to the fund. The man was ultimately fired for showing child pornography in a meeting in an attempt to make a point.
Several of Paxton’s top aides — who later quit or were fired after reporting him to the FBI — came forward in 2020 to allege that the attorney general was abusing the power of his office to help Nate Paul, an Austin real-estate developer who made unproven claims about a conspiracy to steal $200 million of his properties. Paul has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing. Paxton also told staff members that he had an affair with a woman who worked for Paul.
Four of the aides who came forward eventually sued Paxton, accusing him of wrongful retaliation. The aides reached a settlement in the case for $3.3 million in February.
It was this settlement that triggered the state house investigation into Paxton, who had asked the state legislature to set aside taxpayer funds to pay the settlement.
House speaker Dade Phelan has said taxpayers should not be on the hook for the settlement.
The investigators who were hired by the committee to probe corruption allegations against Paxton gave three hours of testimony on Wednesday. The investigators said the corruption may have been criminal.
Ahead of the vote to recommend impeachment, the committee met in an executive session.
“Overturning elections begins behind closed doors,” Paxton wrote on Twitter.
Overturning elections begins behind closed doors.
pic.twitter.com/Mved9ddU3i— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) May 25, 2023
An attorney from his office, Christopher Hilton, dismissed the testimony from investigators as “false” and “misleading” and said voters had been aware of the issues raised when Paxton was elected to a third term in November.
“The 2022 election, the primary and the general, was run on these issues, these allegations,” Hilton said. “The voters have spoken. They want Ken Paxton as their attorney general.”
Hilton also said Texas law allows for impeachment only for conduct that has occurred since the preceding election.
Texas has had only two impeachments under the constitution of 1876, including a governor and a district judge.