The impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton is about to start within the Texas Senate

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Senate is about to gavel in Tuesday for the impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton, a political reckoning of years of alleged corruption that would result in his everlasting ouster from workplace.

The destiny of Paxton, a 60-year-old Republican, is within the fingers of GOP senators with whom he served earlier than profitable a statewide race to take cost of the legal professional common’s workplace in 2015.

In an period of bitter partisanship, the historic continuing is a uncommon occasion of a political celebration looking for to carry certainly one of its personal to account for allegations of wrongdoing. The impeachment additionally got here as a sudden rebuke to Paxton, who has constructed a nationwide profile combating high-profile authorized battles, together with attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and who gained a 3rd time period in 2022 regardless of long-pending state felony costs and an FBI investigation.

The Republican-led House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to question Paxton in May, largely primarily based on his former deputies’ claims that the legal professional common used his energy to assist a rich donor who reciprocated with favors together with hiring a girl with whom Paxton had an extramarital affair. The 20 articles of impeachment embody abuse of public belief, unfitness for workplace and bribery.

The 121-23 vote instantly suspended Paxton and made him solely the third sitting official in Texas’ almost 200-year historical past to be impeached.

Paxton has decried the impeachment as a “politically motivated sham” and an effort to disenfranchise his voters. The legal professional common’s legal professionals say he gained’t testify within the Senate trial. He has mentioned he expects to be acquitted.

Paxton faces trial by a jury – the 31 state senators – stacked together with his ideological allies and a “judge,” Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who loaned $125,000 to his final reelection marketing campaign. His spouse, Sen. Angela Paxton, will attend the trial however can’t take part or vote. Two different senators play a job within the allegations towards Paxton.

A two-thirds majority — or 21 senators — is required for conviction, which means that if all 12 Senate Democrats vote towards Paxton, they nonetheless want no less than 9 of the 19 Republicans to affix them.

The trial will seemingly deliver forth new proof. But the define of the allegations towards Paxton has been public since 2020, when eight of his prime deputies advised the FBI that the legal professional common was breaking the regulation to assist Austin actual property developer Nate Paul.

The deputies – largely conservatives whom Paxton handpicked for his or her jobs – advised investigators that Paxton had gone towards their recommendation and employed an out of doors lawyer to probe Paul’s allegations of wrongdoing by the FBI in its investigation of the developer. They additionally mentioned Paxton pressured his employees to take different actions that helped Paul.

In return, Paul allegedly employed a former aide to a Republican state senator with whom Paxton was having an affair and bankrolled the renovations of one of many legal professional common’s properties, a million-dollar house in Austin.

Paul was indicted in June on federal felony costs that he made false statements to banks to safe greater than $170 million in loans. He pleaded not responsible and has broadly denied wrongdoing in his dealings with Paxton.

The two males bonded over a shared feeling that they had been the targets of corrupt regulation enforcement, in accordance with a memo by one of many staffers who went to the FBI. Paxton was indicted on securities fraud costs in 2015 however is but to face trial. The Senate isn’t taking on, no less than initially, three impeachment articles in regards to the alleged securities fraud and a fourth associated to Paxton’s ethics filings.

Federal prosecutors proceed to look at Paul and Paxton’s relationship, so the proof offered throughout his impeachment trial poses a authorized in addition to a political danger to the legal professional common.

After going to the FBI, all eight of Paxton’s deputies stop or had been fired. Their departures led to an exodus of different seasoned legal professionals and noticed the legal professional common’s workplace consumed by dysfunction behind the scenes.