Rep. Spiller ‘respects’ impeachment vote
The Texas Senate voted not to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton over the weekend, a verdict that Rep. David Spiller (R-Jacksboro) said he “respects” while adding that “the evidence was there.”
Mr. Spiller was one of the 12 House impeachment managers who presented evidence at Mr. Paxton’s two-week trial. Mr. Paxton was the first Texas attorney general in history to be impeached. Mr. Paxton, who was temporarily removed from office while the impeachment process is pending, is accused of bribery, dereliction of duty, disregard of official duties, and obstruction of justice.
Mr. Spiller, who represents Olney and is an attorney, acted as a special prosecutor in the case and was among the first to flag the conduct for which Mr. Paxton was charged.
“I respect [the Senators’] decision,” he said. “Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is the highest standard … I know that is a difficult place to get to for many senators. The evidence was there but that burden is a very high burden.”
The Texas Senate conducted the case much like a criminal trial in a courtroom, in which they considered 16 of the 20 articles of impeachment that were approved by the Texas House in May. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick served as the presiding officer – or judge – and 30 of the 31 state senators served as jurors. Mr. Paxton’s wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, did not deliberate.
Sen. Drew Springer, who represents Olney, voted not to impeach Mr. Paxton. He could not be reached for comment about his vote.
Mr. Patrick, who received $3 million in campaign support from a group campaigning against Mr. Paxton’s impeachment, called for an audit of the proceedings as well as legislation to amend the Texas Constitution to make it more difficult to impeach state officeholders.
“Anybody that said we didn’t follow the constitution and the law is incorrect – we did both,” Mr. Spiller said.
The accusations that led to Mr. Paxton’s removal on May 27 stem from whistleblower lawsuits filed by four high-ranking members of the Office of the Attorney General, Paxton’s own political appointees who were fired after urging the F.B.I. and Texas Rangers to investigate their boss for allegedly using his official powers to help his political benefactor, Nate Paul, a wealthy real estate investor in Austin. In turn, Mr. Paul allegedly financed a complete home renovation for Mr. Paxton, and hired Mr. Paxton’s alleged mistress to bring her from San Antonio to Austin, the committee’s testimony shows.
The whistleblower lawsuits accused Mr. Paxton and his first deputy, Brent Webster, of retaliating against the four men David Maxwell, Ryan Vassar, Mark Penley, and Blake Brickman. In February, after the Texas Court of Appeals in Austin rejected Mr. Paxton’s attempts to have the cases thrown out, he agreed to settle them for $3.3 million. The settlement obligates not Mr. Paxton but Texas taxpayers for the funds, according to the committee’s testimony.
Mr. Spiller was the only member of both the committee that discovered Mr. Paxton’s misdeeds and the one that investigated him. “When you … ask the taxpayers to pay for your illegal activities then that’s something we need to look into,” he said before the trial. “We attempted to get this information and couldn’t get it [from Mr. Paxton] so we tried to get it other ways.”
Mr. Paxton now faces a potential sentence of decades in state prison if convicted of the federal felony securities fraud charges pending against him in an unrelated 2015 case in Collin County.