Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md., Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. Paxton beat impeachment and now he wants political revenge. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
The State Bar of Texas is discontinuing its efforts to discipline embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) for professional misconduct related to Paxton’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
At the bar’s request, the Texas Supreme Court handed down an order Wednesday that ends the bar’s attempts to sanction Paxton. The lawsuit, filed against Paxton in 2021, claimed that Paxton “committed misconduct by filing a frivolous lawsuit” about the election results, which he knew were misleading. The complaint also said that Paxton’s efforts to interfere sought to invalidate votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — far outside Texas’ borders.
According to the complaint against Paxton, the attorney general should be subject to penalties because he “knew the lawsuit lacked any legal merit when he filed it,” and that it was “common knowledge across the nation and world that it had no chance of being adjudicated” by the nation’s high court.
Brent Webster, the attorney general’s first assistant, was also a named party in the lawsuit. Both Paxton and Webster were accused of making false statements to the U.S. Supreme Court in connection with their lawsuit. Possible sanctions for the two could have ranged from private reprimand to outright disbarment.
However, last month, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Webster could not be disciplined, upholding a lower court decision.
“The U.S. Supreme Court neither imposed discipline on the first assistant nor referred him (or anyone else) to the commission (or any disciplinary body),” reasoned the court.
It further wrote, “We decline to stretch the judicial power beyond its constitutional boundaries,” and held in Webster’s favor.
As expected, the State Bar then moved to drop its lawsuit against Paxton, which rested on the same legal arguments as the case against Webster.
The court in a five-page ruling declared the case moot in light of the Webster ruling.
In 2024, Paxton reached a deal to settle a nearly decade-long criminal case against him for securities fraud. In 2023, he was impeached for an alleged corruption scheme and acquitted after a trial. He still faces a lawsuit for official misconduct, bribery, and corruption.
Law&Crime’s Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.
