The Texas Supreme Court on Friday overturned a lower court’s decision to allow Attorney General Ken Paxton to testify in a federal impeachment trial in 2023.
The court on Friday said Paxton’s office would not contest any of the lawsuits filed by Paxton’s four former employees and agreed to any verdict in the case.
“In a major victory for the State of Texas, the state Supreme Court upheld Attorney General Paxton against former OAG employees whose efforts to drag out costly, politically motivated cases against the agency have wasted public resources for years,” Paxton’s said. office said.
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An attorney for one of the plaintiffs declined to comment immediately, and an attorney for a second did not immediately return a call for comment.
Former employees say they were illegally fired or forced out of the FBI on allegations that Paxton misused his office to protect a friend and campaign donor, who they say helped the attorney general cover up adultery.
The Supreme Court’s ruling stated that the Texas governor and Legislature expressed a desire to hear testimony from witnesses before agreeing on an appropriate amount to settle the crime.
The court said that forcing Paxton, First Deputy Attorney General Brent Webster, Chief of Staff Lesley French Henneke and general counsel Michelle Smith to testify could be misused as legal grounds in any financial settlement.
Under the initial agreement, Paxton agreed to apologize to the former employees for calling them “brutal” workers, settle the case for $3.3 million and ask the government to pay, which prompted the State House to reject the request and begin its own investigation. causing them to vote to let him go.
Paxton was later acquitted after a Senate trial.
The Supreme Court said that its decision has provisions for the lower court to follow the decision, saying that it is confident that the trial court will follow the decision.