Looks like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is getting criminally indicted
When the Texas Republican legislature moved to impeach and remove corrupt Attorney General Ken Paxton, it wasn’t out of the goodness of their hearts. It was because they were attempting to get rid of Paxton, and insulate themselves from his scandals, before he could get criminally indicted by the DOJ.
The removal process ultimately failed, because Texas Republicans are just as corrupt as Paxton is. But while impeachment could have cost Paxton his job, an indictment could end up costing him his freedom. Sure enough, a federal grand jury is now making major steps in that direction.
According to Bloomberg, the DOJ grand jury targeting Ken Paxton has subpoenaed a contractor to testify about Paxton’s bribery scandal. The contractor refused to testify during the impeachment process, because that’s something you can pull off. But the contractor will have absolutely no choice but to testify to the grand jury, because no one ever successfully dodges a grand jury subpoena. This witness is set to testify in a little more than a week, and you can fully expect it to happen. His only other option would be to not testify and then get promptly hauled away for contempt.
In any case, if the DOJ has gotten so deep into the grand jury process that it’s hauling in these kinds of witnesses, it sure looks Ken Paxton is getting indicted. There’s no word on how many more witnesses are still yet to testify after this contractor, so we don’t know how to predict the timeframe. But impeachment is a slap on the wrist compared to indictment – and corrupt Texas Republicans can’t save Paxton from a federal criminal indictment.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report