Federal grand jury meeting about impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton, report says
SAN ANTONIO (CBSNewsTexas.com) — A published report says a federal grand jury in San Antonio is meeting to look into ties between impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton and an Austin developer.
The Austin American-Statesman cites two sources with knowledge of the case, and its report comes less than one month before the impeachment trial is set to begin on Sept. 5.
The Statesman says the grand jury is calling witnesses close to Paxton, who remains suspended without pay after being impeached by the Texas House in late May.
According to the report, the grand jury is looking at the relationship between Paxton and Austin developer Nate Paul, who was indicted by the feds in a separate case.
Paul is mentioned in the articles of impeachment against Paxton, who's accused of abusing his power as attorney general to benefit himself and Paul.
Paxton's attorney, Dan Cogdell, told CBS News Texas Thursday that he was not notified about the grand jury and said Paxton has not received a target letter from the federal government.
Paul's attorney, E.G. Morris, couldn't be reached but a representative from his law office said they aren't commenting on the case.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Antonio also declined to comment Thursday.
Paxton has been under federal investigation since October 2020, when seven of his top hand-picked lieutenants went to the FBI with allegations of bribery and other potential crimes.
David Coale, an attorney who's uninvolved in these cases, said Paxton's legal team could decide to ask the Texas Senate—which will decide whether to remove Paxton from office—to push back the impeachment trial.
He said Paxton's team could decide instead to proceed with the trial as planned.
"This is a question for Mr. Paxton, his team about how to best position him and the team to defend on these different fronts," Coale said. "The standard litigation 101 playbook is you try to deal with the criminal cases, then move back to civil cases. This is clearly not a standard 101-type of situation. Impeachment is the sort of hybrid of criminal and civil. Some decisions are going to have to get made by his defense team that, really, no defense team has ever had to evaluate in recent memory."
Paxton is only the third state official to ever be impeached in Texas.
And aside from being under federal investigation, he's also facing state securities fraud charges that date back to 2015.
Paxton is scheduled to return to a Houston courtroom in the state criminal case Oct. 6. He has denied any wrongdoing in the cases involving the federal investigation, the state criminal case, and his impeachment.