Whistleblowers accuse AG Ken Paxton of lying about their allegations of misconduct

Four whistleblowers who accused Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton of bribery and other misconduct issued a detailed rebuttal Monday to what they called “numerous false and misleading public statements” made by Paxton in recent weeks.

The four former high-ranking officials in Paxton’s agency said they had hoped to let their fight play out in court, where their whistleblower lawsuit argues that they were fired in retaliation for reporting illegal activities to the FBI and other authorities in September 2020.

“The people of Texas deserve the truth,” the four former officials said in a joint statement. “The most basic qualifications of an attorney general are respect for truth and respect for the law. Ken Paxton has neither.”

Paxton, facing three Republican opponents in the March 1 GOP primary, has dismissed the whistleblowers as rogue employees who worked to stifle a legitimate investigation into complaints made by Austin real estate investor Nate Paul.

In recent campaign-related appearances and interviews, Paxton has gone farther, complaining that his accusers didn’t come to him and explain their concerns before contacting the authorities in September 2020. Paxton also said he still doesn’t know the specific allegations made against him.

“This is not true,” the whistleblowers said, adding that their lawsuit lists specific dates when they and four other top officials “confronted” Paxton about their concerns several months before turning to law enforcement — action that led to an ongoing investigation by the FBI, which has declined to discuss the matter.

What the whistleblower lawsuit against Ken Paxton alleges

Paxton’s campaign accused the former officials of rehashing false accusations and the “liberal media” of playing along during early voting for the March 1 primary.

“Every effective conservative leader is and will be attacked,” the campaign statement said, adding that Paxton legal challenges to Biden administration policies have had a “90% win rate” in court.

“Others can play politics while we keep winning for Texans,” the campaign said.

The whistleblower lawsuit alleges that Paxton illegally used his office in 2019 and 2020 to help Paul in exchange for benefits that included remodeling Paxton’s Austin home, employing Paxton’s mistress and receiving a $25,000 political donation.

Other allegations included:

• That Paxton improperly intervened in an open records request by Paul, who wanted access to an unredacted FBI document and state investigative records.

• That he intervened in a dispute between Paul and a charitable trust after his agency had declined to get involved.

• That he pushed for an unusually rapid legal opinion, issued at 2 a.m. on a Sunday, limiting public foreclosure sales due to the pandemic — days before one of Paul’s properties was scheduled for a foreclosure sale.

• That he overruled two eventual whistleblowers — former Director of Law Enforcement David Maxwell and Mark Penley, the former deputy attorney general for criminal justice — who had concluded that Paul’s allegations of misconduct by investigators lacked merit, to hire an outside lawyer to dig into Paul’s claims.

“The complaint in the whistleblower case includes detailed factual allegations and identifies at least six federal and state criminal laws that we accused Ken Paxton and his office of violating,” said the statement by Maxwell, Penley and former Deputy Attorneys General James Blake Brickman and Ryan Vassar.

Paxton’s campaign said Monday that the accusations were discredited by a 59-page internal report, plus 315 pages of background documents, that concluded in August that Paxton committed no crimes in official actions related to Paul.

The whistleblowers have dismissed the report, which listed no author or authors, as self-serving and one-sided, noting that it included no investigation of several key accusations, such as their allegation that Paul paid to renovate Paxton’s home and employed his mistress.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fights to dismiss lawsuit

Paxton has sought to dismiss the whistleblower lawsuit, arguing that the attorney general can fire his political appointees at will.

He also argued that he can’t be sued because the Texas Whistleblower Act was intended to protect government employees from on-the-job retaliation by another public employee. The attorney general is a statewide elected official and not a public employee, Paxton argued.

Thus far, however, a trial judge and the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals have disagreed with Paxton’s interpretation of the law and allowed the lawsuit to proceed.

Paxton responded by asking the Texas Supreme Court to overturn the lower courts and dismiss the lawsuit.

In January, lawyers for the whistleblowers told the Supreme Court that they saw no need to respond to Paxton’s appeal. The court, however, last week asked the whistleblowers to file a response to Paxton’s complaint by March 21.

The Supreme Court will then decide whether to let the lower-court rulings stand or accept Paxton’s appeal to determine whether the whistleblower lawsuit can continue.

Additional accusations against Texas AG Ken Paxton

In their Monday statement, the former officials accused Paxton of using the appeals to delay their lawsuit while he fights off challengers in the GOP primary.

The whistleblowers also disputed Paxton’s claim, made during a Feb. 9 interview with Texas Scorecard, that the issue involving Paul didn’t originate with Paxton but was instead referred to his agency by the Travis County district attorney.

According to the whistleblowers and their lawsuit, however, Paxton approached the DA’s office in May 2020 “and requested a meeting to help Nate Paul present a criminal complaint” alleging that state and federal investigators had improperly searched Paul’s home and businesses in 2019.

Paxton and Paul attended that meeting with officials from the DA’s office, who chose not to investigate but instead, in June 2020, referred Paul’s complaint back to the attorney general’s office, concluding that Travis County was not the appropriate forum to investigate Paul’s allegations.

In an October 2020 letter, then-District Attorney Margaret Moore made it clear that Paxton initiated the complaint.

“For Ken Paxton to now claim that he had nothing to do with the referral is false,” the whistleblowers said.