TX Lawyers Call for Disbarment of ‘Unethical’ AG Paxton

Texas AG Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr. CBS Photo

Sixteen Texas attorneys, including four former Presidents of the State Bar of Texas, have filed a complaint calling for lawyers to suspend or permanently expel Texas Attorney General Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr.

Citing “grave ethical misconduct,” the filers of the 31-page complaint condemned Paxton for filing a lawsuit in the Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election results in four states and urged Americans to do so in January Marching Capitol in support of then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and violate professional and ethical standards.

Lawyers Defending American Democracy, who jointly filed the lawsuit with the State Bar of Texas, called it “an extraordinary rejection of a Texas attorney general by senior legal professionals.”

Signatories include Randall Chapman, former chairman of the Appeals Oversight Committee of the Texas Supreme Court; former Texas Assistant Attorney General Judy Doran; former Travis County Attorney David Escamilla; former President of the Texas Mexican American Bar Association, Maria Luisa Flores; and the founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project, James C. Harrington.

The complaint contains the details of an ultimately dismissed lawsuit Paxton filed in December 2020 asking the Supreme Court to prevent Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin from using the results of the presidential election to nominate voters, and instead the State lawmakers to appoint new electors or none at all.

“If the state legislatures had been given the power to nominate their own voters, they would predictably have nominated voters who would vote for Trump on the electoral college,” the complaint said.

“Alternatively, if the legislature had not nominated elections, Mr Trump would have won the electoral college because no electorate from those four states had voted for Mr Biden.

“In any event, granting the relief Mr. Paxton requested would have undone the results of the presidential election and made the loser, Mr. Trump, the winner.”

This is not the first time Paxton, a Republican, has been in the limelight for alleged ethics violations, reports the New York Times. In November 2020, aides accused Paxton of bribery and corruption after he appointed a special prosecutor to investigate investor Nate Paul’s allegations that law enforcement officers acted unlawfully in the 2019 raid on Paul’s home and offices.

Paul, a friend of Paxton’s, contributed $ 25,000 to Paxton’s re-election campaign in 2018, reports The Texas Tribune. This misconduct allegation, which sparked Paxton’s resignation, came several years after a Texas grand jury charged him with securities fraud and failure to register with the state securities commission in 2015.

In the gravest indictment, Paxton was charged with encouraging investors in 2011 to invest more than $ 600,000 in Servergy, a technology company, but failing to tell them he was paying a commission on their investment and claiming to be an investor misrepresent the company, reports Die Zeiten. This case was not without several controversies.

The Times reported in 2015:

Prior to the indictment, a spokesman for Mr Paxton, Anthony Holm, openly defended Mr Paxton. He characterized the case as a political witch hunt, suspected that an anti-Paxton blogger had been involved in jury manipulation, and questioned the special attorneys’ eagerness to report and their impartiality as defense attorneys.

Paxton’s recent complaint regarding the “frivolous” lawsuit calls on the Chief Disciplinary Attorney’s Office to investigate the allegations set forth, along with those against Paxton mentioned in other complaints, and to “commence the necessary procedures to suspend him or to dismiss ”.

“Such behavior cannot be accepted by any person licensed to practice law in the United States, let alone an acting attorney general,” the complaint read. “Mr. Paxton’s unethical conduct after discharge was serious in itself. It showed a pattern of ethical misconduct and made his previous conduct in the Supreme Court complaint even more egregious.”

To read the full, 31-page complaint, click here.

Eva Herscowitz is an intern in TCR Justice Reporting.