28th May 2023 – (Washington) The Texas House of Representatives, led by the GOP, has voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton over accusations of corruption, lawbreaking, and power-abusing. Unlike in Congress, impeachment in Texas requires immediate removal from office until a trial is held in the Senate.
The vote was 121-23, with two members voting “present.” Republicans hold an 85-64 majority in the chamber.
Paxton, a powerful Republican and firm ally of former President Donald Trump, has denied all wrongdoing and called the effort to impeach him a “deceitful,” politically motivated campaign to disenfranchise voters who reelected him in November.
The accusations against Paxton include repeatedly abusing his office and committing at least three felonies in an effort to help a friend and political donor with various legal troubles. He was reelected in the 2022 midterm elections despite being under indictment on felony securities fraud charges as well as an FBI probe into whistleblowers’ bribery claims against him.
Paxton is only the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to have been impeached, following Governor James Ferguson in 1917 and District Judge O.P. Carrillo in 1975.