The Texas Attorney General who seems to just hold disdain for the law, Ken Paxton, somehow still isn't in jail yet.
On this date in both 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who prior to winning that office in the 2014 elections, was a member of the Texas state legislature for over a decade. And while there’s no shortage of Texas Republicans for CSGOPOTD to have profiled through the past few years, Ken Paxton earned our notice not just for the usual Fundamentalism you see from members of the Lone Star State GOP, but for the fact that while he was tasked with enforcing the law in Texas, he was simultaneously fighting an extended legal battle while being accused of committing securities fraud.
But that’s really not all, as Paxton’s alleged illegal activity and all his chicanery to avoid ever going to go to trial for it until after the 2018 elections, if at all, (the indictments for white collar crime are almost three years old now) have cost a small fortune in legal fees. Legal fees which were paid for by campaign donors of Paxton, so he’s had to report “gifts” he’s received totaling over $84,000 to keep himself out of court.
Again, this is the guy responsible with the law being enforced in Texas. Although, his interest in what the law actually is seems hyper-focused on partisan politics, as Paxton has encouraged state officials to ignore the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, chastised school districts for respecting the gender identity of students trying to use the bathroom, and just two months ago, Paxton sent a “cease and desist” letter to Texas public schools for busing students eligible to vote to the polls, which has been encouraged previously in Texas since the Civil Rights movement passed over half a century ago. It seems Paxton is terrified of the thought of young people having access to our democracy.
But Paxton is threatened by a great many things, and will flat out make things up to feign outrage over, like the time he accused a Texas school district of creating a “Muslim-only prayer room”, which was in no way a part of reality. Or it could be just that Ken doesn’t see that well out of his droopy eye, or something.
Maybe none of this should come as much of a surprise, because when you look at Paxton’s career in the Texas state legislature, there were signs he was a fanatic, like when he co-sponsored HB 3678, a bill aimed at allowing students greater expression of their religious beliefs in public schools, like say, when a teacher dared to mention that evolution is a thing. He also co-sponsored SB 14, a bill to suppress the vote in Texas via stricter Voter ID laws, voted for bills that attempted to nullify federal firearm regulations, co-sponsored legislation that would enact the failure of a conservative policy of drug testing welfare recipients, voted against HB 950, which would have guaranteed equal pay for women in Texas, and was a co-sponsor of Texas’ HB 2 law, which was aimed at closing down all the abortion clinics in the state by creating stricter requirements for them.
In spite of all the indictments that have held against him for years now, as well as his long track record of extremist lunacy, Ken Paxton decided not to bow out of the 2018 elections, and only narrowly won re-election, barely cracking the 50% threshold. His trial for securities fraud has yet to begin, and his wife, Angela Paxton, is now a Texas State Senator trying to draft legislation that would exempt her husband from facing jail time for the crimes he’s committed (really).
He has taken his second term in office to do such effective things such as launch an investigation into the city of San Antonio for refusing to open a Chik-Fil-A in their airport because of the company’s history of anti-LGBTQ activities, because Paxton feels they may have rejected the chicken franchise due to “religious discrimination”. (Remember Texas, he’s spending taxpayer dollars on that investigation.)
And, ever so slowly, the trial date approaches for Ken Paxton, but yet he’s still not resigned, using his office during one of the more pressing times in American history in some of the most corrupt and bizarre ways. Like how Paxton intervened on behalf of one of his political donors out of state in Colorado to try and get them an exception against a “stay out” order for non-residents of a resort community during the Covid-19 outbreak. Or how he’s been trying to fight against calls to vote by mail during the pandemic to prevent the spread of the virus and getting more people infected. He aligned so much with the Texas GOP’s insistence on “reopening the economy” that he paid the fines of a Dallas salon owner who ignored orders to keep her business shuttered during the outbreak. (Again, this is the guy in charge of making sure people obey the law.)
None of that was keeping the state of Texas calling for Ken Paxton to be bounced out of office, and put in jail… so he decided to go for a Hail Mary in December of 2020… after Donald Trump lost the election, he needed a state attorney general who could be leveraged into appealing the results of the 2020 presidential election to the U.S. Supreme Court… and Ken Paxton, desperate to get a pardon for securities fraud, obliged. Spoiler Alert: Like practically every legal challenge Trump had filed on his behalf, it failed. And Trump never rewards people for failure, so… no pardon for Ken Paxton. However, because he’s a corrupt, selfish prick, now Trump’s most fanatical followers had the fuel needed to inspire an attack on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and are still holding onto “Trump won” as a conspiracy theory. To which, Paxton claims that the attackers were not Trump supporters, but “busloads of Antifa”.
So, f*** you very much, Ken. Do not pass Go. Go directly to jail.
Currently, Paxton is floundering on Fox News whenever they’ll have him with some fake conservative outrage about immigrants, or onto Newsmax to whine about Critical Race Theory, because why not poison the water in our country on his way to jail? Plus, he’s turning his back on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for all the wrong reasons, and, but of course… he keeps getting charged with new cases of securities fraud.
It’s remains a question of if, but when Ken Paxton is sent off to prison.
One Year Ago, May 20th, 2021: Ken Paxton (TX)… 2020 Update
Two Years Ago, May 20th, 2019: Ken Paxton (TX)… 2019 Update
Three Year Ago, May 20th, 2018: Ken Paxton (TX)… Original Profile
Four Years Ago, May 20th, 2017: Mark Reed (CA)… 2017 Update
Five Years Ago, May 20th, 2016: Mark Reed (CA)… 2016 Update
Six Years Ago, May 20th, 2015: Mark Reed (CA)… Original Profile
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