Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says the disciplinary investigation by the state bar association into a complaint he committed professional misconduct by petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in four swing states is being led by Democrats who want him out of office.
“It’s definitely a Democratic operative down there in Galveston (Texas) and the former mayor of Galveston is supposedly going to run for attorney general so it’s one of his friends that launched this, and he’s somehow connected to some of these lawyers that are on the bar,” Paxton said Thursday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s “Chris Salcedo Show.”
“I am joining an amicus brief in a lawsuit against the bar because they are violating First Amendment rights of other lawyers by taking liberal positions and using our dues to do that. So, we also have a little bit of conflict going in that we have a little controversy between my office and the bar already.”
The state bar of Texas originally dismissed the complaint but the Board of Disciplinary Appeals, a tribunal of 12 independent lawyers appointed by the Texas Supreme Court, overturned that decision last month and ordered the bar to probe whether Paxton’s lawsuit was frivolous, unethical and filed in bad faith.
Paxton is also facing a years-old criminal case and a separate, newer FBI investigation.
Kevin Moran, the 71-year-old president of the Galveston Island Democrats, shared his complaint with The Associated Press along with letters from the State Bar of Texas and the Board of Disciplinary Appeals that confirm the investigation. He said Paxton’s efforts to dismiss other states’ election results was a wasteful embarrassment for which the attorney general should lose his law license.
“He wanted to disenfranchise the voters in four other states,” said Moran. “It’s just crazy.”
Paxton has less than a month to reply to Moran’s claim that the lawsuit to overturn the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was misleading and brought in bad faith, according to a June 3 letter from the bar. All four of the battleground states voted for Biden in November.
Paxton says there’s “no doubt in my mind” all four states had not followed their own state laws.
“Voters were being treated differently in different counties depending on what the county judge ruled,” he said.
“I’m very confident that all of these states that there were parts of the states and in some of them the majority of the state that wasn’t following the state law.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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