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Telehealth for Texas dot Com. Hello and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast
for May twenty six, twenty twenty three. It is the end of a
crazy day, a crazy week, and a crazy month, and politics culminating
yesterday with the House General Investigating Committee disclosing that it had recommended the impeachment of
Attorney General Ken Paxton. Twenty articles of impeachment delivered to the Texas House yesterday.
They have been distributed in the House, revealing today that they're expecting to
vote on impeachment at one pm today. A major kind of earth shattering week
in Texas politics. Joining us today to discuss this our politics Reporter Patrick speetech
Hey, Patrick, Hey, thanks for having me, Yeah, thanks for
joining. And politics reporter James Bettergan Hey, James Hey, Matthew, Hey,
it's James, So walk us through this twenty articles of impeachment. How
did we get here and what is Kim Paxton accused of? Well, it's
as you said, it's been a stunning week here in the Texas House,
starting on Tuesday when the General Investigating Committee revealed to the public that they had
been investigating Attorney General Kent Paxton since March four crimes that were alleged by the
whistleblowers in twenty twenty some of his top deputies who accused him of crimes.
That investigation went beyond even what the whistleblowers alleged and even touched on his previous
securities fraught charges from twenty fifteen, which are still ongoing. It stretched into
a potential two property homestead exemptions rather than just a one allowed by Texas law.
And now we have the twenty articles of impeachment against Ken Paxson that have
been recommended by the Committee to the House. And that is where we are
on the precipice of this really historic moment on Saturday. He would be the
first Attorney general to sit for impeachment if indeed House lawmakers decide to push that
forward to the Senate. So a kind of new revelation coming from the committee
about Pason having two home set exemptions. A you know, something that is
against the law, not legal, but also maybe not the highest in the
ranking of Ken Packson scandal. You know, something we've seen before. Governor
Rick Perry had this problem once before as well, back in the day when
he was running for governor. But um, you know, some of these
other things are things that we've already known about, particularly what was laid out
by the whistleblowers, allegations of bribery, inappropriate relationship with donors, kind of
interfering with some of the duties of the AG's office, perhaps to tip the
hand for Nate Paul, one of his not perhaps they're they're they're accusing that
they're accusing him of abusing the Attorney General's office to benefit his friend and political
donor in Nate Paul, right, right, Patrick. All of those things
we have known about since twenty twenty one, the last time the legislature met.
Why why is this happening now? Well, it depends who you ask.
According to House leadership, this was all triggered by Paxton's requests of the
legislature to authorize taxpair of dollars to pay for that settlement with the whistleblowers,
you know. In fact, and the memo, the latest memo that we
saw from the General Investigating Committee, uh, you know, there was a
bolded sentence in it that said, you know, we cannot emphasize enough that
this impeachment wouldn't be happening if Paxson had not asked the legislature, um,
you know for these uh this taxpayer funded settlement. So that is that is
their explanation. You know. The Speaker's office has said that when Paxson came
to the legislature earlier this year to ask for that settlement, he did not
provide enough evidence or support um for his need for the state funds for that
settlement. So that's their side of the story. Of course, if you're
with Paxton, you know, or even if you're on the fence, you
know, you can't help, but you know, acknowledge the political context here,
which is that Ken Paxton represents um you know, comes from a wing
of the Texas Republican Party that is persistently critical the Texas House, constantly dogging
it as insufficient conservative. You know, Ken Paxxton and his you know,
doesn't do that, you know, every day in his you know, job
as Attorney General. But there's no doubt where his bread is buttered and what
kind of faction of the Republican Party in Texas he comes from. And so
you know, to his supporters, you know, this reeks of political retaliation
because he comes from that part of the party and he feels he feeled those
speculations on Tuesday, prior to the committee's meeting, when he put out a
message sort of accusing Speaker Feeling of being intoxicated on the diet, which is
a thing that had been sort of floating around. And then right after that,
then that's when the Committee's sort of made public that actually it's an investigation
about you, and perhaps that's why you're trying to create the smokescreen. Yeah,
that the allegation of Feeling being intoxicated of coming from a video from you
know, a few days earlier. We're Feeling, at the end of a
very long day presiding over the House, seemed to be slurring his speech.
Many people in the kind of hard right we're jumping on that video saying that
he seemed like he was drunk that calling for Feeling to resign, which you
know, that was right before we knew what was about to happen in the
General Investigating Committee was its own sort of dramatic event. But I mean,
James, what we have here is kind of you know, Republicans going after
Republicans. Here. This is not a Democratic House impeaching a Republican president.
This is a Republican controlled House going after a Republican attorney general. Yeah.
And just for the record for listeners and our audience, we have asked persistently
that question about date, feeling and whether he was drunk, and we just
have not been able to get an answer, I think from from the Speaker's
office. So those questions have been made. I know there's there's there is
obviously concerned from some people about what that was there. But to your point,
Matthew, yes, I mean this is a continuation of the in fighting
between Republicans, the more conservative social far right wing of the party and the
more establishment Republican that has been in some oderation really for the last decade or
so, I think, and that is what we're seeing. But I think
to Patrick's point, you know, the House is saying, well, we
started this investigation because of the settlement. I don't, you know. I
guess we take them at face value. But for me, like politically,
I just don't understand why they wouldn't have been able to do this kind of
investigation before. I mean, these allegations by the whistleblowers were known since twenty
twenty, the securities fraud charges were known since twenty fifteen, so I mean
there was plenty of room for them to work with before the General Investigating Committee
could have taken that up. I guess, But yeah, that that part
has sort of got myself and I think another a lot of other reporters and
perhaps some people in the public started scratching their head about like what's different?
Why? Why? Why now? Yeah? And also, James, you
mentioned that the securities fraud charges are part of the articles of impeachment, and
so the idea that the articles impeachment are exclusively centered on the whistleblower claims is
you know, you know, exclusively prompted or centered on the whistleblower claims,
which are totally separate from the securities broad charges. That's kind of debunked by
the fact that the the you know, articles of impeachment are are broader than
the whistleblower claims, and they do encompass articles related to those years old securities
broad charges. So, um, you know, but this is the explanation
we've gotten from the House. Of course, there's no doubt that there are
you know, uh, when handling something like this, Um, there are
all kinds of political considerations in terms of how you structure at the pacing,
what you decide to go public with. UM. So you know, of
course, the you know, House leadership is not you know, pure as
the driven snow here when it comes to you know, bringing um. So
you know, that's that that needs to be said. Impeachment, as many
people have noted, is is ultimately a political act, local process, right,
you know. And one kind of phrase we have been hearing and I
think will continue to be hearing is forgiveness doctrine. Right this this idea that
you know, a a aid to Paxton kind of brought up that you can't
be impeached for actions that happened after the most I mean sorry, before the
most recent election. All of these things were known to the voters in twenty
twenty two. The voters had choices. They could have elected one of three
other Republican primary opponents of Ken Paxton. They could have elected a Democrat in
the general election. They chose not to do that. And so the question
being A, is it appropriate, you know, setting aside the law to
kind of, you know, as as paxson supporters have said, undo the
will of the voters. And B is it legal? You know, is
there kind of precedent to suggest that they should only be punishing him for things
afterwards? You know, we don't know whether there will be legal challenges,
you know, we should say. We're recording this at a little bit after
three o'clock on Friday. Ken Paxson has not spoken publicly. He released a
statement, but he is giving a press conference at four o'clock today and we
might hear more about that. But I mean, I think a lot of
questions still being raised about the House's processes and procedures and all this. Yeah,
and the House tried to address this in their memo, right Patrick.
I mean they said that this quote unquote forgiveness doctrine that they've thrown around.
The Attorney General's office also has to be said sent a lawyer to the General
Investigative the committee saying, hey, I want to testify we should have our
fair say in this process, and then argued to reporters because he was not
allowed to testify, that the investigation was illegal and that impeachment of an elected
official is limited to alleged crimes made before they were elected in office. But
I think they stretched that to say the last election is what they said.
We've looked at the statue and it says limited crimes or office. Of course,
the House has said that doesn't apply here, and they've shown their precedent
here, so I don't know. You know, the Attorney General has not
been afraid of shall I say, novel legal theories, so I would not
be surprised if there was some type of legal argument. In fact, as
we're recording, there's a press conference scheduled for later today, so we'll have
to see what they say. But yeah, a lot of moving parts to
this happening right now. All right, let's pause for a him and hear
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in America. All right, Patrick, walk us through what happens next here
the how does the impeachment process work? From the I guess recommendation that was
made by the committee. So the House General Investigating Committee says they intend to
bring up the impeachment resolution at one pm on Saturday and have a four hour
debate over it, and so we can have a you know, a vote
to impeach Paxxton, you know, as early as you know, five pm
on Saturday. This could all be done by then. And that vote,
you know, as we've detailed on the in all of our coverage, requires
just a simple majority of the House members. And so that right now,
I believe is seventy six members, and you already have sixty four Democrats who
can be expected to vote as a block to impeach Paxxton. So that means
you only need I believe, twelve Republicans. You already have three Republicans who
have voted on the committee to recommend us, and so it's it's very easy
to see how you get to the majority needed in the House. But I
think if you're in House leadership, you are you are trying to be mindful
of this coming across as a Democratic majority impeachment vote. And so while all
Democrats are going to vote for impeachment, you want to have a sizable number
of Republicans, probably ideally the majority of the Republican caucus also vote for impeachment.
You know, we've seen not that this changes what the Constitution says about
what the Senate has to do, but we have seen the Lieutenant Governor Dan
Patrick, you know, bock At taking up things from the House that are
predominantly fueled by Democratic votes. And so I do think in terms of winning
a public opinion battle, it probably would be important for this to come out
of the House with majority Republican support. That's a complicated kind of political situation
here. You know, you have a um an Attorney general who I think
there has been sort of tepid concern raised by you know, various Republicans and
statewide and other offices from Texas about Kim Paxton, but we have not seen
really up until this week, Republicans really kind of willing to kind of stick
their neck out and you know, all for Kim Paxton to resign or or
you know, do anything like voting for impeachment. What do you think,
James, of the political dynamics the differing incentives that the members of the House
are going to have to consider here. Yeah, I mean, I think
Patrick laated out very well. I think GOP leadership in the House is probably
cognizant of the fact that they don't want this to be a supermajority of Democrats
voting for this, probably want a good decent amount of Republicans on there.
Frankly, I don't know that that's super far off. Like, I think
that the way that the Committee has presented its findings, the way it managed
the investigation, you know, I think a lot of Republicans in the House
or scratching their heads and saying, you know, you know what kind of
sort of why didn't we do this earlier? So it's no doubt a complicated
issue, and you know, there's probably lobbying going on on both sides,
right, Like I mean, House leadership, the Committee is probably lobbying and
will be presenting their case Saturday. And similarly, Ken Baxton probably lobbing folks
and saying, hey, I didn't even get a fair shake here. You
know, you're overturning the will of the voters. I hate to repeat that
phrase, but you know, voters did have a chance to vote in twenty
or last year, and they overwhelmingly re elected him, right, And I
think this is a really tough vote. I think if you're a Republican anywhere
in the legislature, even though we've heard confidence that the votes exist in the
House, I still think that this is a This is a tough vote for
Republican member of the legislature to defend Um, you know, if they draw
a primary challenge next cycle. Um. You know, we've seen repeatedly UM
over the years with Paxston's scandals, that primary voters are aware of them,
but don't really are not really interested in all the nitty gritty details because there
are a lot of nitty gritty details. I mean, even even the whistleblower
stuff, which is a little easier to understand, you know, has so
many different chapters and layers to it, and um, you know, the
average voter, I think, you know, gets lost in it sometimes.
Whereas on the other side, Paxston has a pretty politically neat and concise argument
to make that it's a witch hunt. You know, it's like it's like
Trump the way they went after UM, and so I think politically, it's
it's it's it's a it's a difficult vote for a lot of members to have
to defend. Adding to that, Patrick, he's like a huge conservative warrior,
rock star for the grassroots. Um, you know you and I co
wort that race. And what voters would tell us is like he you know,
people may not like him, people may think he's you know, not
you know, everybody's best friend, but he's getting the conservative things that the
grassroots want done and so and I think he mentioned that in his UM in
a couple of his statements, basically saying like not these exact words, but
the sentiment is like I am the only thing standing between Texas and liberal Biden
chaos basically UM. And I think for a lot of Republican voters that is
that is very true. I mean it seems to me like what this needs,
what needs to happen, if this does happen, is you need Republicans
to feel like they're all kind of going to go in on this together and
that no one's going to kind of be stuck and like shouldering the blame as
being like I'm the person who suck my nag out and here with possibly the
exception of feeling who is of course being bashed and Andrew mur right, right,
but you know, I feeling being bashed by the right wing left and
right over this already, but not a particularly unusual position for him to be
in. You know, he took I would say, a similar level of
heat for appointing you know, a few Democratic committee chairs at the beginning of
this session, to the extent that you know, maybe he's He's the person
who initiates this. And what I think determines whether this goes forward or not
is whether he can kind of keep that momentum rolling without too many defections.
Yeah, I think so, but I think you know, he is used
to this, but it is at a more elevated level. But the other
thing to talk about is the Senate. Right, So if they vote,
which I think I think probably Republican lawmakers do feel like they have the votes,
it goes to the Senate and then the Senate has to actually do the
trial for removal. And the noteworthy thing I think from last night Patrick,
tell me if you agree, is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's interview with Jason Whiteley
in which he did not throw water on it. He was very cautious to
say, I don't want to speak too much about it because we want to
remain objective jurors and it would be inappropriate for us to say anything like that.
There's other dynamics there with of course Senator Angela Paxton Ken Paxton's wife.
But I don't know Patrick, What did you make of Dan Patrick's comment there?
It struck me that he wasn't throwing cold water run Yeah, I mean,
and also he I mean, she's sure he wasn't attacking it or blasting
it or throwing cold water on it, but he wasn't also even saying like
it's it's too premature. I mean, when he sat for that interview,
we didn't even know if the articles impeachment we're going to hit the house floor
anytime soon. I mean, it was just, you know, from a
political perspective, seemed very cautious from Patrick in a way that did not benefit
Paxton. So yeah, I mean, it really honestly feels like I mean,
I know, I'm a younger person, I don't have a lot of
history of these kinds of things, but it does does actually feel like the
second trump impeachment after January sixth, where the House, you know, impeached
him, and there was that brief period where it felt like the Senate may
go along with it. I don't know if you're remember, but you know
the release of the New York Times that Mitch McConnell was seriously considering whipping votes
to remove Trump from all, you know, to you know, go through
through with us barring him from running profess again. And it seemed like there
was a brief period there where you know, the Republicans could actually get rid
of him once and for all. And if I have a feeling we're gonna
have be in the same situation if the House votes to impeach, where it's
gonna like really fall on Dan Patrick's lap, and there's going to be a
period where you know, it's you know, Dan Patrick really holds all the
cards and can really you know, banish Ken Paxon from Texas political life for
good. And so we'll see what happens. And of course we should note
it's a two thirds vote in the Senate in order to essentially remove him from
office. I mean, the other interesting factor year is that, according to
the Constitution, if he is impeached, Paxton must relinquish his duties immediately,
essentially at least temporarily until the results of the Senate trial. So I mean,
we could have a situation where, you know, twenty four hours from
the point we're talking, Ken Paxton at least, you know, for all
intensive you know, at least for a temporary period of time, is no
longer kind of the acting Attorney General. Governor Abbott has the option, I
believe it's may appoint kind of an interim replacement in that circumstance. According to
the Constitution, He of course, is the last sort of factor in here.
Has not really said anything. Unless I'm mistaken about this, how do
we evaluate Abbot's role in this? And and you know, maybe does he
even really need to say anything? Patrick, you've talked to I think yeah.
I mean, look, journalistically, we're staying on top of him,
trying to get a comment out of him, and you know, our readers
in a public deserve you know, transparency, and is thinking on this politically
totally different thing. I mean, there's no there's no real political incentive I
see for Abbott to put his fingerprints on this quite yet. I mean,
as we're seeing right now. You know, without Abbott's public, you know
comments, the House has been able to get articles of impeachment on the precipice
of a floor vote, and which would imply that they have the votes.
And so you know, at this point, you know, from political perspective,
um, you know, I don't think it, you know, makes
sense for you know, I don't think Abbott has to weigh in to have
any influence on the process. Yeah, and it's it's I mean, it's
quite frankly, it's chaos out there because you do have some people saying like,
well, yes, we should consider these things. But you know,
the Republican Party of Texas, no small player in this, has come out
and said the impeachment is basically a shampum, and so there is a part
of the base. The official Republican Party of Texas's stance is that they stand
with Ken Paxton. And so there is division, there is chaos, and
we're in for a very interesting next twenty four hours. I think. Yeah,
you know, they're moving very quickly on this. We just found out
about this a few days ago. We're looking at a vote on Saturday.
I mean, I do kind of wonder about the pace right, it's part
of that designed to kind of keep the like drumbeat of conservative pushback from scaring
members out of votes or anything like that. You know, I mean,
if you you know, you mentioned the GOP. We also heard Donald Trump
Junior kind of tweet out something in support of Paxiston can ritten House not exactly
kind of the dream team of Republican support. But you know, some people
who conservatives, hardline conservatives pay attention to as well. And if you were
to start to see more folks, if you were to see some kind of
major political figures speak out, that could possibly sway things one way or the
other. Right, Kyle Rittenhouse, Texan question markt But yes, to your
point, I mean, yes, there is a lot of there's a lot
going on here. It's not just those voices that you're pointing out. There's
also a lot of anonymous voices, right, Patrick, of like these perhaps
dark money groups sending out attacks against the speaker now saying like hey we did
we don't need to get rid of of Attorney General Paxton. So you know,
the chess pieces are being played and they are moving. So yeah,
it's people buckle up, I guess, yeah, you know, we'll say,
and this was I made this point in story wrote this morning just because
it feels like the you know, at least my tones put a little cynical
towards the House throughout this podcast. But it is a huge deal and you
know, a rare moment of political boldness or courage for the House to go
this Throughoute I mean as well be you know, it's Republicans in Texas have
largely looked the other way for years and years on Paxton. And you know,
in doing this, the House is abruptly changing that arch of history or
seeking a change at the archipistry. No Attorney general in the yeah, in
the history of Texas has Satburn beachment. So it's a big move. It
is a big move, and it is something we will be closely watching over
the weekend. A note to listeners if you enjoyed the trip cast, I'm
sure we'll be talking about this on Monday when we have our live trip cast
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dot org slash events if you'd like to come participate in that. In the
meantime, we'll let y'all go because we got a press conference in twenty nine
minutes, and you know this, a lot could change in the next twenty
four hours. So thank you Patrick, thank you James, thank you to
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