The Texas Attorney General just got acquitted of impeachment. Now he’s on the offensive.
And Ken Paxton has said nine words that plunged the U.S. Senate into mayhem.
On Wednesday, the first day of public comment following his dismissal on charges of corruption at his impeachment trial, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton assailed his Republican competitors and showed an openness to opposing U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in 2026.
Paxton did not address the allegations against him of using his position to shield a political donor, which formed the basis for his impeachment and made him only the third serving official in Texas’ almost 200-year history to be impeached. There was a two-week trial, but Paxton did not testify. The FBI is still investigating him.
Paxton, on the other hand, used taped conversations with former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson to lash out at Republicans who pushed for his impeachment and insist his career is far from done.
“It became political completely, and I didn’t know how it was going to turn out on the political side,” Paxton told Carlson.
On Saturday, the Texas Senate found no evidence to support sixteen articles of impeachment against Paxton. His link with an Austin real estate entrepreneur named Nate Paul, who was charged in June for allegedly lying to banks to get more than $170 million in loans, was at the center of most of the claims against him. Paul has entered a not guilty plea and has chosen to skip the impeachment hearing.
To remove Paxton from office, nine Republicans would have had to join Senate Democrats in voting to convict him on all charges of impeachment, but only two Republicans did so. State Senator Angela Paxton, Paxton’s wife, is one of Texas’s 31 senators; she was compelled to be at the trial but was not allowed to cast a vote.
During the trial, Paxton’s defense team claimed that his impeachment was the result of a political plan engineered by opposition Republicans. Paxton was slated to continue his media tour with conservative presenters on Thursday, picking up where they left off.
He also took aim at Cornyn, who has been one of the few prominent Texan Republicans to voice alarm about Paxton’s legal woes in recent years.
Carlson pressed Paxton on why he doesn’t run against Cornyn in the upcoming 2026 race, and Paxton replied, “Hey look, everything is on the table for me.”
Cornyn’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from media outlets this week.
The verdict in the trial is not the end of Paxton’s problems. His efforts to overturn the 2020 election on flimsy grounds have resulted in him being indicted on felony securities fraud charges, the subject of a second FBI investigation, and in danger of losing his license to practice law in Texas.
If he makes it out of all these investigations politically alive, that could be a big problem for Chuck Schumer and the U.S. Senate Democrats.
John Cornyn is a sitting Republican, but he’s hardly a strong one. He’s a standard, generic RINO who will voice support for conservative ideals during the election season. But then he will turn around and sell out his conservative base at every opportunity he gets.
Ken Paxton replacing him would be a big shake up for the U.S. Senate as the Republicans would be adding a much stronger conservative who would stand up to the Democrats trying to get away with garbage legislation in the U.S. Senate.
Replacing a RINO with a tried and true conservative can be just as big of a win as flipping a seat outright. Especially when the U.S. Senate has been so hotly contested for so many years now.
Only time will tell what will happen to Ken Paxton’s political future. You can watch the full Tucker Carlson Twitter show episode with Ken Paxton below.
Ep. 25 Liberals like Karl Rove just tried to annihilate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. It didn't work. Paxton just joined us for his first interview since his acquittal. pic.twitter.com/SAJGNN5LXW
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) September 21, 2023
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