Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) had a simple answer when a constituent confronted him about a broken campaign promise at a public forum this month — he ran.

Sullivan was wrapping up a Zoom session at ComFish, Alaska's commercial fishing conference, when someone on the call put him on the spot.

"Hey Senator, do you have a second for one more question?" asked Jacob Carlson.

"Nope, I've got to run, I've got a 5 o'clock press conference. And I've got to prepare for it," Sullivan said.

"Oh but why did you break your pledge to return the money you took from the Pebble Mine CEO?" Carlson asked.

Sullivan's response was swift.

"I gotta run. Thanks!" he said — and disappeared.

"Why did you break your pledge? To return the money?" Carlson demanded to know.

But the senator had already left.

"Ok. With that ..." an organizer of the forum said, trailing off as the audience chuckled.

The recorded exchange is making the rounds in Alaska political circles, according to Alaska Public Media's Alaska At-Large newsletter, and is expected to feature prominently in upcoming anti-Sullivan ads as his Senate race against Democrat Mary Peltola heats up.

In 2020, Sullivan pledged to donate all campaign contributions from Pebble Mine's then-CEO Tom Collier to charity after secret recordings surfaced of Collier bragging that he had Sullivan "sitting over in a corner and being quiet." Sullivan called Collier's behavior "unethical practices."

Sullivan is still accepting contributions from Pebble's current CEO John Shively, who gave $500 in December and another $500 in February.

Newly unsealed deposition transcripts obtained by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton admitted under oath to violating attorney-client privilege by handing over data from a former client to a plaintiff suing them.

This comes as Paxton fights in a heated runoff for the GOP Senate nomination against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who trails him in most polls. President Donald Trump was previously considering an endorsement of Cornyn to bail him out, but now appears not to be interested in doing so.

"The deposition marked a rare instance of Paxton being made to answer questions under oath," noted the report. "It remained effectively sealed when the case’s judge, a donor to Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, delayed ruling on its sealing for more than four years until the case was settled in 2023."

One of the details from the deposition, reported the Journal, is that he confessed to handing over information that he had an ethical obligation to keep confidential.

"Charles Loper III, trustee of Paxton’s blind trust, sued Byron Cook, a former business associate, claiming fraud by Unity Resources, an energy investment company. Paxton wasn’t a defendant in the suit, but was Unity’s former lawyer, board member and investor," said the report. In the deposition, "Attorneys pressed Paxton on having given Unity records to his own attorney Mitch Little — who was also representing Loper in suing Unity — but not to Unity itself. 'I’m sure I did,' Paxton said of giving the communications to Little, saying that he had done so to see if they were privileged."

"Legal ethics experts declined to read the deposition because it is under a protective order, but said giving former client communications to anyone — especially someone suing the client — is a violation of attorney-client privilege," said the report. "And, records belong to the client and can’t be withheld, they said."

Paxton campaign spokesman Nick Maddux denied the report, saying, “The Wall Street Journal has spent the last year bending over backward to be an extension of the Cornyn campaign, but this one takes the cake.”

A lawyer was stunned on Monday while discussing a new civil rights investigation the Trump DOJ is undertaking.

In a new episode, Shant Karnikian, a lawyer and co-host of the "Civil Unrest" podcast, discussed the Trump DOJ's civil rights probe into Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump administration staffer who testified against the president during the inquiry into the Jan. 6 insurrection. On April 7, the New York Times reported that the DOJ is investigating whether Hutchinson lied to Congress.

"This is political retribution at its worst," Karnikian said.

Karnikian noted that the probe appeared to focus on a couple of statements. In one, Hutchinson claimed that President Donald Trump reached out and tried to grab the steering wheel of "The Beast," the president's car, on January 6 to return to the Capitol. She also testified that Trump did not do anything to protect former Vice President Mike Pence during the insurrection.

Karnikian also recalled Hutchinson testifying that she was coached by Trump's ethics lawyers ahead of her testimony. Hutchinson said she felt pressured to tell the court that she "didn't recall" certain details.

"That's despicable stuff," Karnikian said.