It all begins in the summer of 2015 when Paxton had to turn himself over to police after being indicted on securities fraud charges. Paxton was accused of running "a side hustle" while running for attorney general and sitting in the state legislature. According to the suit, he got friends and colleagues to invest "hundred of thousands of dollars in a certain company, failing to mention to him that that company was paying him to do just that, paying him to scout investors," said Maddow.
It's illegal to do that, something one would assume a potential attorney general would know, but in this case, it wasn't even Paxton's first time.
"Just one year before, the same guy, Ken Paxton, had admitted in engaging in a remarkably similar illegal scheme involving a different company and securities fraud involving that other company," Maddow reported. "In that earlier case, he had admitted what he did. They let him off with a $1,000 fine. But that made it hard for him to argue that he didn't understand what the law was here. When he came up on these second round of charges, he wasn't going to get off on a $1,000 fine. The second round of charges carried a possible punishment of up to 99 years in prison. And so it was this kind of remarkable summer day in 2015, Ken Paxton, attorney general of the state of Texas, he gets fingerprinted, gets his grinning mug shot taken."
Paxton never resigned, in fact, Texas reelected him, knowing that he was being indicted for a second time.
However, Paxton's next scandal came just a few weeks ago when the Austin American Statesman newspaper obtained a letter from seven of Paxton's deputies in the attorney general's office. They claimed that they had reported Paxton to law enforcement authorities, saying, "we have a good faith belief that the attorney general is violating federal and/or state law including abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses."
The accusation is that Paxton was using his office to benefit a campaign donor. Paxton has denied it, saying that all seven of his deputies were "rogue employees," in addition to being deputy attorneys general.
"Seven deputies and assistant Texas attorneys general all went rogue in exactly the same way," Maddow said with a speculative tone. "Took a little while for dogged reporters in Texas to put it all together. It was not helped by the fact that Paxton kept firing the people who had blown the whistle on him. We know what happened. There was a campaign donor to Ken Paxton. He got his house raided by the FBI that was investigating him for serious crimes. This campaign donor was not happy that his house got raided by the FBI. But he knew he had donated generously to the state attorney general, so he turned to the state attorney general. He asked him to help him push back against the FBI. He asked him to specifically start an investigation of the FBI, and the federal prosecutors and the judge in his case, and various other federal officials. And Ken Paxton said, 'sure. Sure, I'll do that for you, Mr. Campaign Donor. I will open an investigation into the FBI because the FBI had the temerity to go after you.'
Paxton then hired a lawyer with connections to the donor and made him the "special counsel" for the case.
The deputies have now filed suits claiming the firing was unlawful retaliation, and Paxton is now under FBI investigation for that, in addition to the second securities fraud case.
Paxton is now starting a lawsuit against several states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden in the 2020 election, alleging that voting for Biden was illegal because he doesn't like it. He's asking that the Supreme Court step in and find that the elections of Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania were "done wrong" and thus shouldn't be counted in the electoral college.
The case is absurd and will likely get dismissed, but Maddow thinks something more profound is at play. President Donald Trump is reportedly handing out pardons as Christmas presents to everyone on his staff. It appears that Paxton might need one.
"Could it be that maybe somebody has the FBI breathing down his neck, and he's hoping for one of those many, many, many pardons the president is reportedly planning on handing out willy nilly in his final days?" Maddow asked. "If you want this president to pardon you, you've got to get his attention. This is the kind of viper's nest of interests and conflicts that is driving, among other things, these dead-ender lawsuits at this point."
See Maddow's full take below:
