This week's trip cast is sponsored by ut Arlington's commitment to excellence keeps Texas strong with highly skilled graduates for the Texas workforce and life changing research. Find out more at UTA dot edu and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. Delivering quality healthcare to underserved areas throughout Texas by expanding vital telehealth services. Learn more at Telehealth for Texas dot Com. Hello and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast
for May twenty six, twenty twenty three. It is the end of a crazy day, a crazy week, and a crazy month, and politics culminating yesterday with the House General Investigating Committee disclosing that it had recommended the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton. Twenty articles of impeachment delivered to the Texas House yesterday. They have been distributed in the House, revealing today that they're expecting to vote on impeachment at one pm today. A major kind of earth shattering week
in Texas politics. Joining us today to discuss this our politics Reporter Patrick speetech Hey, Patrick, Hey, thanks for having me, Yeah, thanks for joining. And politics reporter James Bettergan Hey, James Hey, Matthew, Hey, it's James, So walk us through this twenty articles of impeachment. How
did we get here and what is Kim Paxton accused of? Well, it's as you said, it's been a stunning week here in the Texas House, starting on Tuesday when the General Investigating Committee revealed to the public that they had been investigating Attorney General Kent Paxton since March four crimes that were alleged by the whistleblowers in twenty twenty some of his top deputies who accused him of crimes.
That investigation went beyond even what the whistleblowers alleged and even touched on his previous securities fraught charges from twenty fifteen, which are still ongoing. It stretched into a potential two property homestead exemptions rather than just a one allowed by Texas law. And now we have the twenty articles of impeachment against Ken Paxson that have been recommended by the Committee to the House. And that is where we are
on the precipice of this really historic moment on Saturday. He would be the first Attorney general to sit for impeachment if indeed House lawmakers decide to push that forward to the Senate. So a kind of new revelation coming from the committee about Pason having two home set exemptions. A you know, something that is against the law, not legal, but also maybe not the highest in the
ranking of Ken Packson scandal. You know, something we've seen before. Governor Rick Perry had this problem once before as well, back in the day when
he was running for governor. But um, you know, some of these other things are things that we've already known about, particularly what was laid out by the whistleblowers, allegations of bribery, inappropriate relationship with donors, kind of interfering with some of the duties of the AG's office, perhaps to tip the hand for Nate Paul, one of his not perhaps they're they're they're accusing that they're accusing him of abusing the Attorney General's office to benefit his friend and political
donor in Nate Paul, right, right, Patrick. All of those things we have known about since twenty twenty one, the last time the legislature met. Why why is this happening now? Well, it depends who you ask. According to House leadership, this was all triggered by Paxton's requests of the legislature to authorize taxpair of dollars to pay for that settlement with the whistleblowers,
you know. In fact, and the memo, the latest memo that we saw from the General Investigating Committee, uh, you know, there was a bolded sentence in it that said, you know, we cannot emphasize enough that this impeachment wouldn't be happening if Paxson had not asked the legislature, um, you know for these uh this taxpayer funded settlement. So that is that is
their explanation. You know. The Speaker's office has said that when Paxson came to the legislature earlier this year to ask for that settlement, he did not provide enough evidence or support um for his need for the state funds for that
settlement. So that's their side of the story. Of course, if you're with Paxton, you know, or even if you're on the fence, you know, you can't help, but you know, acknowledge the political context here, which is that Ken Paxton represents um you know, comes from a wing of the Texas Republican Party that is persistently critical the Texas House, constantly dogging it as insufficient conservative. You know, Ken Paxxton and his you know, doesn't do that, you know, every day in his you know, job
as Attorney General. But there's no doubt where his bread is buttered and what kind of faction of the Republican Party in Texas he comes from. And so you know, to his supporters, you know, this reeks of political retaliation because he comes from that part of the party and he feels he feeled those speculations on Tuesday, prior to the committee's meeting, when he put out a message sort of accusing Speaker Feeling of being intoxicated on the diet, which is
a thing that had been sort of floating around. And then right after that, then that's when the Committee's sort of made public that actually it's an investigation about you, and perhaps that's why you're trying to create the smokescreen. Yeah, that the allegation of Feeling being intoxicated of coming from a video from you know, a few days earlier. We're Feeling, at the end of a very long day presiding over the House, seemed to be slurring his speech.
Many people in the kind of hard right we're jumping on that video saying that he seemed like he was drunk that calling for Feeling to resign, which you know, that was right before we knew what was about to happen in the General Investigating Committee was its own sort of dramatic event. But I mean, James, what we have here is kind of you know, Republicans going after Republicans. Here. This is not a Democratic House impeaching a Republican president.
This is a Republican controlled House going after a Republican attorney general. Yeah. And just for the record for listeners and our audience, we have asked persistently that question about date, feeling and whether he was drunk, and we just have not been able to get an answer, I think from from the Speaker's office. So those questions have been made. I know there's there's there is
obviously concerned from some people about what that was there. But to your point, Matthew, yes, I mean this is a continuation of the in fighting between Republicans, the more conservative social far right wing of the party and the more establishment Republican that has been in some oderation really for the last decade or so, I think, and that is what we're seeing. But I think to Patrick's point, you know, the House is saying, well, we
started this investigation because of the settlement. I don't, you know. I guess we take them at face value. But for me, like politically, I just don't understand why they wouldn't have been able to do this kind of investigation before. I mean, these allegations by the whistleblowers were known since twenty twenty, the securities fraud charges were known since twenty fifteen, so I mean there was plenty of room for them to work with before the General Investigating Committee
could have taken that up. I guess, But yeah, that that part has sort of got myself and I think another a lot of other reporters and perhaps some people in the public started scratching their head about like what's different?
Why? Why? Why now? Yeah? And also, James, you mentioned that the securities fraud charges are part of the articles of impeachment, and so the idea that the articles impeachment are exclusively centered on the whistleblower claims is you know, you know, exclusively prompted or centered on the whistleblower claims,
which are totally separate from the securities broad charges. That's kind of debunked by the fact that the the you know, articles of impeachment are are broader than the whistleblower claims, and they do encompass articles related to those years old securities broad charges. So, um, you know, but this is the explanation
we've gotten from the House. Of course, there's no doubt that there are you know, uh, when handling something like this, Um, there are all kinds of political considerations in terms of how you structure at the pacing, what you decide to go public with. UM. So you know, of course, the you know, House leadership is not you know, pure as the driven snow here when it comes to you know, bringing um. So
you know, that's that that needs to be said. Impeachment, as many people have noted, is is ultimately a political act, local process, right, you know. And one kind of phrase we have been hearing and I think will continue to be hearing is forgiveness doctrine. Right this this idea that you know, a a aid to Paxton kind of brought up that you can't be impeached for actions that happened after the most I mean sorry, before the
most recent election. All of these things were known to the voters in twenty twenty two. The voters had choices. They could have elected one of three other Republican primary opponents of Ken Paxton. They could have elected a Democrat in the general election. They chose not to do that. And so the question being A, is it appropriate, you know, setting aside the law to kind of, you know, as as paxson supporters have said, undo the
will of the voters. And B is it legal? You know, is there kind of precedent to suggest that they should only be punishing him for things afterwards? You know, we don't know whether there will be legal challenges, you know, we should say. We're recording this at a little bit after three o'clock on Friday. Ken Paxson has not spoken publicly. He released a statement, but he is giving a press conference at four o'clock today and we might hear more about that. But I mean, I think a lot of
questions still being raised about the House's processes and procedures and all this. Yeah, and the House tried to address this in their memo, right Patrick. I mean they said that this quote unquote forgiveness doctrine that they've thrown around.
The Attorney General's office also has to be said sent a lawyer to the General Investigative the committee saying, hey, I want to testify we should have our fair say in this process, and then argued to reporters because he was not allowed to testify, that the investigation was illegal and that impeachment of an elected official is limited to alleged crimes made before they were elected in office. But I think they stretched that to say the last election is what they said.
We've looked at the statue and it says limited crimes or office. Of course, the House has said that doesn't apply here, and they've shown their precedent here, so I don't know. You know, the Attorney General has not been afraid of shall I say, novel legal theories, so I would not be surprised if there was some type of legal argument. In fact, as we're recording, there's a press conference scheduled for later today, so we'll have to see what they say. But yeah, a lot of moving parts to
this happening right now. All right, let's pause for a him and hear from our sponsors. Lone Star College works for Texas providing real world workforce training in state of the art facilities to meet employers demands. Learn more at lone Star dot edu. And nearly four thousand BP employees work to deliver energy in Texas. Learn more about our Investment in America at BP dot com slash investing in America. All right, Patrick, walk us through what happens next here
the how does the impeachment process work? From the I guess recommendation that was made by the committee. So the House General Investigating Committee says they intend to bring up the impeachment resolution at one pm on Saturday and have a four hour debate over it, and so we can have a you know, a vote to impeach Paxxton, you know, as early as you know, five pm on Saturday. This could all be done by then. And that vote, you know, as we've detailed on the in all of our coverage, requires
just a simple majority of the House members. And so that right now, I believe is seventy six members, and you already have sixty four Democrats who can be expected to vote as a block to impeach Paxxton. So that means you only need I believe, twelve Republicans. You already have three Republicans who have voted on the committee to recommend us, and so it's it's very easy
to see how you get to the majority needed in the House. But I think if you're in House leadership, you are you are trying to be mindful of this coming across as a Democratic majority impeachment vote. And so while all Democrats are going to vote for impeachment, you want to have a sizable number of Republicans, probably ideally the majority of the Republican caucus also vote for impeachment.
You know, we've seen not that this changes what the Constitution says about what the Senate has to do, but we have seen the Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, you know, bock At taking up things from the House that are predominantly fueled by Democratic votes. And so I do think in terms of winning a public opinion battle, it probably would be important for this to come out of the House with majority Republican support. That's a complicated kind of political situation
here. You know, you have a um an Attorney general who I think there has been sort of tepid concern raised by you know, various Republicans and statewide and other offices from Texas about Kim Paxton, but we have not seen really up until this week, Republicans really kind of willing to kind of stick their neck out and you know, all for Kim Paxton to resign or or
you know, do anything like voting for impeachment. What do you think, James, of the political dynamics the differing incentives that the members of the House are going to have to consider here. Yeah, I mean, I think Patrick laated out very well. I think GOP leadership in the House is probably cognizant of the fact that they don't want this to be a supermajority of Democrats voting for this, probably want a good decent amount of Republicans on there.
Frankly, I don't know that that's super far off. Like, I think that the way that the Committee has presented its findings, the way it managed the investigation, you know, I think a lot of Republicans in the House or scratching their heads and saying, you know, you know what kind of
sort of why didn't we do this earlier? So it's no doubt a complicated issue, and you know, there's probably lobbying going on on both sides, right, Like I mean, House leadership, the Committee is probably lobbying and will be presenting their case Saturday. And similarly, Ken Baxton probably lobbing folks and saying, hey, I didn't even get a fair shake here. You
know, you're overturning the will of the voters. I hate to repeat that phrase, but you know, voters did have a chance to vote in twenty or last year, and they overwhelmingly re elected him, right, And I think this is a really tough vote. I think if you're a Republican anywhere in the legislature, even though we've heard confidence that the votes exist in the House, I still think that this is a This is a tough vote for Republican member of the legislature to defend Um, you know, if they draw
a primary challenge next cycle. Um. You know, we've seen repeatedly UM over the years with Paxston's scandals, that primary voters are aware of them, but don't really are not really interested in all the nitty gritty details because there are a lot of nitty gritty details. I mean, even even the whistleblower stuff, which is a little easier to understand, you know, has so many different chapters and layers to it, and um, you know, the average voter, I think, you know, gets lost in it sometimes.
Whereas on the other side, Paxston has a pretty politically neat and concise argument to make that it's a witch hunt. You know, it's like it's like Trump the way they went after UM, and so I think politically, it's it's it's it's a it's a difficult vote for a lot of members to have to defend. Adding to that, Patrick, he's like a huge conservative warrior, rock star for the grassroots. Um, you know you and I co
wort that race. And what voters would tell us is like he you know, people may not like him, people may think he's you know, not you know, everybody's best friend, but he's getting the conservative things that the grassroots want done and so and I think he mentioned that in his UM in a couple of his statements, basically saying like not these exact words, but the sentiment is like I am the only thing standing between Texas and liberal Biden
chaos basically UM. And I think for a lot of Republican voters that is
that is very true. I mean it seems to me like what this needs, what needs to happen, if this does happen, is you need Republicans to feel like they're all kind of going to go in on this together and that no one's going to kind of be stuck and like shouldering the blame as being like I'm the person who suck my nag out and here with possibly the exception of feeling who is of course being bashed and Andrew mur right, right, but you know, I feeling being bashed by the right wing left and
right over this already, but not a particularly unusual position for him to be in. You know, he took I would say, a similar level of heat for appointing you know, a few Democratic committee chairs at the beginning of this session, to the extent that you know, maybe he's He's the person who initiates this. And what I think determines whether this goes forward or not is whether he can kind of keep that momentum rolling without too many defections. Yeah, I think so, but I think you know, he is used
to this, but it is at a more elevated level. But the other thing to talk about is the Senate. Right, So if they vote, which I think I think probably Republican lawmakers do feel like they have the votes, it goes to the Senate and then the Senate has to actually do the trial for removal. And the noteworthy thing I think from last night Patrick, tell me if you agree, is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's interview with Jason Whiteley
in which he did not throw water on it. He was very cautious to say, I don't want to speak too much about it because we want to remain objective jurors and it would be inappropriate for us to say anything like that. There's other dynamics there with of course Senator Angela Paxton Ken Paxton's wife. But I don't know Patrick, What did you make of Dan Patrick's comment there?
It struck me that he wasn't throwing cold water run Yeah, I mean, and also he I mean, she's sure he wasn't attacking it or blasting it or throwing cold water on it, but he wasn't also even saying like it's it's too premature. I mean, when he sat for that interview, we didn't even know if the articles impeachment we're going to hit the house floor anytime soon. I mean, it was just, you know, from a political perspective, seemed very cautious from Patrick in a way that did not benefit
Paxton. So yeah, I mean, it really honestly feels like I mean, I know, I'm a younger person, I don't have a lot of history of these kinds of things, but it does does actually feel like the second trump impeachment after January sixth, where the House, you know, impeached him, and there was that brief period where it felt like the Senate may
go along with it. I don't know if you're remember, but you know the release of the New York Times that Mitch McConnell was seriously considering whipping votes to remove Trump from all, you know, to you know, go through through with us barring him from running profess again. And it seemed like there was a brief period there where you know, the Republicans could actually get rid
of him once and for all. And if I have a feeling we're gonna have be in the same situation if the House votes to impeach, where it's gonna like really fall on Dan Patrick's lap, and there's going to be a period where you know, it's you know, Dan Patrick really holds all the cards and can really you know, banish Ken Paxon from Texas political life for good. And so we'll see what happens. And of course we should note it's a two thirds vote in the Senate in order to essentially remove him from
office. I mean, the other interesting factor year is that, according to the Constitution, if he is impeached, Paxton must relinquish his duties immediately, essentially at least temporarily until the results of the Senate trial. So I mean, we could have a situation where, you know, twenty four hours from the point we're talking, Ken Paxton at least, you know, for all intensive you know, at least for a temporary period of time, is no
longer kind of the acting Attorney General. Governor Abbott has the option, I believe it's may appoint kind of an interim replacement in that circumstance. According to the Constitution, He of course, is the last sort of factor in here. Has not really said anything. Unless I'm mistaken about this, how do we evaluate Abbot's role in this? And and you know, maybe does he even really need to say anything? Patrick, you've talked to I think yeah.
I mean, look, journalistically, we're staying on top of him, trying to get a comment out of him, and you know, our readers in a public deserve you know, transparency, and is thinking on this politically totally different thing. I mean, there's no there's no real political incentive I see for Abbott to put his fingerprints on this quite yet. I mean,
as we're seeing right now. You know, without Abbott's public, you know comments, the House has been able to get articles of impeachment on the precipice of a floor vote, and which would imply that they have the votes. And so you know, at this point, you know, from political perspective, um, you know, I don't think it, you know, makes sense for you know, I don't think Abbott has to weigh in to have
any influence on the process. Yeah, and it's it's I mean, it's quite frankly, it's chaos out there because you do have some people saying like, well, yes, we should consider these things. But you know, the Republican Party of Texas, no small player in this, has come out and said the impeachment is basically a shampum, and so there is a part of the base. The official Republican Party of Texas's stance is that they stand with Ken Paxton. And so there is division, there is chaos, and
we're in for a very interesting next twenty four hours. I think. Yeah, you know, they're moving very quickly on this. We just found out about this a few days ago. We're looking at a vote on Saturday. I mean, I do kind of wonder about the pace right, it's part of that designed to kind of keep the like drumbeat of conservative pushback from scaring members out of votes or anything like that. You know, I mean,
if you you know, you mentioned the GOP. We also heard Donald Trump Junior kind of tweet out something in support of Paxiston can ritten House not exactly kind of the dream team of Republican support. But you know, some people who conservatives, hardline conservatives pay attention to as well. And if you were to start to see more folks, if you were to see some kind of major political figures speak out, that could possibly sway things one way or the
other. Right, Kyle Rittenhouse, Texan question markt But yes, to your point, I mean, yes, there is a lot of there's a lot going on here. It's not just those voices that you're pointing out. There's also a lot of anonymous voices, right, Patrick, of like these perhaps dark money groups sending out attacks against the speaker now saying like hey we did we don't need to get rid of of Attorney General Paxton. So you know,
the chess pieces are being played and they are moving. So yeah, it's people buckle up, I guess, yeah, you know, we'll say, and this was I made this point in story wrote this morning just because it feels like the you know, at least my tones put a little cynical towards the House throughout this podcast. But it is a huge deal and you know, a rare moment of political boldness or courage for the House to go this Throughoute I mean as well be you know, it's Republicans in Texas have
largely looked the other way for years and years on Paxton. And you know, in doing this, the House is abruptly changing that arch of history or seeking a change at the archipistry. No Attorney general in the yeah, in the history of Texas has Satburn beachment. So it's a big move. It is a big move, and it is something we will be closely watching over
the weekend. A note to listeners if you enjoyed the trip cast, I'm sure we'll be talking about this on Monday when we have our live trip cast at ten am at the Texas Tribune Studios nine one nine Congress Avenue in Austin downtown, just a few blocks away from the Capitol. So visit Texas Tribune
dot org slash events if you'd like to come participate in that. In the meantime, we'll let y'all go because we got a press conference in twenty nine minutes, and you know this, a lot could change in the next twenty four hours. So thank you Patrick, thank you James, thank you to our producer Justin, and thank you to our sponsor is UT Arlington bp Lone Star College and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. We'll talk to y'all
soon. Get ready to explore the latest in politics, public policy, and the media with the lawmakers and thought leaders making the news at the Texas Tribune Festival, happening September twenty first through the twenty third in downtown Austin. Discounted tickets are on sale now through May thirty first at tribfest dot org.