Ken Paxton Begins His Impeachment Trial With a Loss

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Ken Paxton Begins His Impeachment Trial With a Loss.
The impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton began Tuesday and hurtled Republicans into a reckoning over whether to oust a prominent member of their party after years of alleged corruption or stand with one of former President Donald Trump’s biggest defenders.
The historic trial — the first impeachment proceedings in Texas in nearly a half-century — is the gravest threat to date for Paxton, who has spent nearly his entire three terms in office under felony indictment on securities fraud charges and, later, the clouds of an ongoing FBI investigation.

In an era of bitter partisanship across the U.S., the trial is a rare instance of a political party seeking to hold one of its own to account for allegations of wrongdoing. For years in Texas, many Republicans have resisted criticizing or facing head-on the litany of legal troubles surrounding Paxton, who has remained popular among the hard right by aligning himself closely to Trump and rushing his office into lawsuits that have halted priorities of the Biden administration.

With his political career on the line, Paxton did not stick around for the entire first day of the trial, which was carried live on TV stations across Texas. He sat at the defense table in the morning but did not return for opening statements, and it was not clear when or whether he would return.

“Mr. Paxton should be removed from office because he failed to protect the state and instead used his elected office for his own benefit,” said Republican state Rep. Andrew Murr, one of the House impeachment managers leading the case against Paxton.

“In Texas, we require more from our public servants than merely avoiding being a criminal,” he said.

The proceedings got off to a bumpy start for Paxton, with Republican senators rejecting his numerous requests to dismiss many of the 20 impeachment charges. And although dozens of his supporters watched from the Senate gallery, including some who showed up at the Texas Capitol before sunrise, many rows remained empty.

As the articles of impeachment were formally read aloud, Paxton’s attorney, Tony Buzbee, answered the charges by calling them untrue or incorrect and saying his client pleads not guilty. When the proceedings resumed later without Paxton, Buzbee said the rules only required him to be there at the start.

At the heart of the case are accusations that Paxton abused his office to help one of his donors, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, who was indicted this summer on charges of making false statements to a bank to secure more than $170 million in loans. Buzbee said Paxton “gave nothing of significance” to Paul and framed the proceedings as an attempt to overturn the will of voters.

“This