Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks ahead of a rally held by former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Robstown, Texas, U.S., October 22, 2022. REUTERS/Go Nakamura/File photo Acquire Licensing Rights
Sept 5 (Reuters) – The prosecution in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial on Tuesday urged state senators to convict the Republican on corruption-related charges and remove him for exploiting the power of his office for his own personal benefit.
Paxton entered pleas of not guilty as an impeachment trial spearheaded by his fellow Republicans got underway. After senators voted down his pretrial motions to dismiss the charges, Paxton rose on the Senate floor to hear the 16 articles of impeachment he faces in the trial, but did not speak.
An ally of former President Donald Trump, Paxton has been suspended from his post since the Texas House of Representatives voted in May to impeach him on corruption charges including aiding a wealthy political donor and persecuting whistleblowers from his office who accused him of wrongdoing. Both chambers of the state legislature are controlled by Republicans.
Tony Buzbee, one of his lawyers, entered Paxton’s not guilty pleas, argued his innocence and branded the charges “offensive.”
Republican state Representative Andrew Murr, delivering the opening statement for the prosecution, urged senators to remove Paxton from a post he has held since 2015.
“Mr. Paxton has been entrusted with great power. Unfortunately, rather than rise to the occasion, he’s revealed his true character, and as the overwhelming evidence will show, he’s not fit to be the attorney general for the state of Texas,” Murr said.
“Mr. Paxton should be removed from office because he failed to protect the state – and instead used the power of his elected office for his own benefit,” Murr added.
As attorney general, Paxton has backed powerful oil and gas interests and pursued restrictions on abortion and transgender rights. Paxton has led Republican state opposition to the policies of Democratic presidents and filed an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat.
“The allegations that I’ve just heard are untrue,” Buzbee said after one article of impeachment was read. “Therefore, Ken Paxton pleads not guilty.”
Paxton, 60, is not expected to testify during the trial, expected to last several weeks, and has called it a political witch hunt. The last impeachment trial of a statewide office-holder in Texas was held in 1917.
His fate rests with the 31-member state Senate, which needs a two-thirds majority vote to remove him from office after a trial on 16 of the 20 articles of impeachment approved by the House. Thirty senators will serve as jurors. Paxton’s wife, Angela, is a Republican state senator, but is not acting as a juror in his trial due to concerns over conflict of interest.
Senators rejected a motion to dismiss all the charges by a vote of 24-6 and also voted down additional motions to throw out individual charges. The senators did not necessarily signal how they will vote at the end of the trial but clearly showed their willingness to hear evidence in the case.
Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 U.S. election despite facing criminal charges in four separate cases, has backed Paxton, who is also under investigation by the FBI.
The Senate has 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats. If all the Democrats vote to convict Paxton as expected, nine Republicans would need to join them to reach the threshold majority necessary to permanently remove him from office.
Paxton’s impeachment was triggered by his request that House lawmakers approve a $3.3 million settlement he reached with four former staff members who accused him of abuse of office and were subsequently fired. State lawmakers did not act on Paxton’s request.
The House voted 121-23 to impeach him on 20 articles that accused him of improperly aiding a real estate developer and political donor Nate Paul, conducting a sham investigation against the whistleblowers in his office, and covering up wrongdoing in a separate federal securities fraud case, among other offenses.
Paxton has been elected to his post three times despite legal woes that stretch back to 2015, handily winning re-election last year.
The Senate’s impeachment rules committee set aside four charges involving Paxton’s private business dealings that House charges said were obstruction of justice and false statements in official records. At the end of the trial, the Senate could dismiss those four charges or hold a separate trial on them.
Reporting by Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado; Editing by Will Dunham, Donna Bryson and Andy Sullivan
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