AUSTIN (Legal Newsline) - Trouble may be compounding for embattled Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who's facing an impeachment trial Sept. 5 in the state Senate on corruption charges.
The Dallas Morning News reported July 10 that House impeachment investigators are looking at Paxton's ties to WatchGuard Video, a police tech company that produces dash cameras. The company, based in Collin County where Paxton has resided for decades, received a "lucrative" state contract in 2006, according to the article.
Since 2014, the company has made more than $33 million in sales to state and local agencies, the article states, and investigators are looking at Paxton's potential involvement in the awarding of the contract, whether he benefited personally and if proper disclosure of any potential involvement was made.
On May 28, the Texas House voted overwhelmingly, 121-23, to adopt 20 articles of impeachment against Paxton, in an 86-24 Republican controlled chamber. Sixty Republicans voted in favor of impeachment.
The articles can be found here.
At the upcoming trial, senators will act as jurors and a panel of House members will present their case. It will take a two-thirds vote in the 19-12 Republican controlled chamber, or 21 votes, to remove Paxton from office.
His wife, Angela Paxton, is a Republican state senator in District 8 (Collin County), but will not be allowed to cast a vote in her husband's impeachment trial.
Paxton has denied charges and has said the case is politically motivated. He has called the vote to impeach "illegal, unethical, and profoundly unjust."
Paxton, who was elected to a third term in 2022, is suspended from office pending trial.
Gov. Greg Abbott named former secretary of state John Scott to serve as an interim replacement.