All from the Texas Tribune.
- Who is Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general accused of bribery and abuse of office?
What do we know about the most recent allegations against him?
- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he won't resign after accusations of criminal activity by top aides.
In his limited public statements on the allegations, Paxton has pointed the finger back at the top deputies accusing him of wrongdoing. But Paxton claimed Monday that he was merely investigating a case that had been sent to the agency, as is his responsibility. “The Texas attorney general’s office was referred a case from Travis county regarding allegations of crimes relating to the FBI, other government agencies and individuals. My obligation as attorney general is to conduct an investigation upon such referral,” Paxton said. “Because employees from my office impeded the investigation and because I knew Nate Paul I ultimately decided to hire an outside independent prosecutor to make his own independent determination.”
- As Ken Paxton faces criminal allegations, an agency at war with itself must carry on the state’s business.
Even before the latest accusations against Paxton, the attorney general’s office has seen turnover and bad press in recent weeks. In addition to the departures of Rylander and Moutos, Katherine Cary, the agency’s chief of staff, was expected to depart this fall. Those are yet more challenges for a busy agency now enmeshed in a public relations disaster and potentially a criminal morass. Current and former employees describe an agency run through a strict hierarchy, where staffers check with their division chiefs, who check with the deputy attorney general they serve under, who would often check with Mateer or someone else in the top brass, before initiating an investigation or filing a legal document.
Any shakeup in that hierarchy “puts the agency in a very hard predicament,” said one longtime employee who declined to speak on the record about the fallout from the Paxton allegations in fear of professional retaliation. “I don’t know how they’re going to handle questions like that — who’s going to give permission for what and to whom?” the employee said. “If executive administration is losing so many people, how is the agency going to run?”
According to the Houston Chronicle, former top aides to Paxton have alleged that the attorney general inappropriately appointed a special prosecutor to target “adversaries” of Paul, who donated $25,000 to Paxton’s reelection campaign in 2018. Those “adversaries” appear to include agents who raided Paul’s home and business office, though Paxton has confirmed only that he authorized an investigation into “allegations of crimes relating to the FBI, other government agencies and individuals” and that the investigation involved Paul.
