By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
AUSTIN, Texas | Ken Paxton waits. The usually energetic current Texas Attorney General has spent the last two weeks worrying about expulsion from an office he has held since 2015. He's on trial in the Texas Senate for abuse of official powers.
Testimony in the impeachment trial ended at noon yesterday, with senators serving as jury considering the charges through 8:00 PM last night. They recessed without a verdict and will resume deliberations this morning.
Paxton had skipped attending the trial most of this past week, but was present yesterday. His wife Angela (see photo below), a state senator representing a constituency in McKinney, also was in the trial's courtroom. She has been barred from voting on her husband's fate.
State Rep. Jeff Leach, who has said he considered himself a good friend of Paxton, offered words of courage for the jury, urging a conviction. Leach is from North Texas.
"This will, if you're like me, be the hardest, the most difficult, the heaviest vote that you will ever cast in your time in the Legislature," Leach said, most likely talking from his own experience as one of the House members who made the case in the lower chamber to charge Paxton with offenses ranging from constitutional bribery and disregarding his official duties to firing the once-trusted aides who had warned him he was straying outside of legal bounds.
Jurors will also consider a second ruling if they vote to oust Paxton.
They may also vote to bar him from seeking other state offices. That, however, would not preclude Paxton from running for, say, Congress.
He was first elected in 2014 and later won reelection in 2018 and 2022...
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Just hang this clown already. he's a Trumper!
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