Ken Paxton, the hard-right Texas attorney general and longtime magnet for scandal, is one of three top contenders in the Republican primary for Senate in Texas on Tuesday.
Here are five things to know about Mr. Paxton, 63.
1. He survived an impeachment vote in the Texas Senate in 2023. Mr. Paxton, who had been suspended from office after he was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives, was acquitted following a nine-day trial in the State Senate centered on accusations that he had abused his office to help a real estate investor. Republicans served as both the defense and the prosecution. Mr. Paxton said in a statement at the time that the trial was intended to “settle political differences,” declaring the process “immoral and corrupt.”
2. He has aligned himself with President Trump. Over the years Mr. Paxton has led the legal charge on some of Mr. Trump’s top priorities, suing to overturn the 2020 election result and leading a push during Mr. Trump’s first term to set aside the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Trump hailed Mr. Paxton’s acquittal in the impeachment trial. But he stopped short of endorsing Mr. Paxton in this year’s divisive Senate primary. Still, Mr. Trump declined to side with the Republican incumbent, John Cornyn, the state’s senior senator.
3. His divorce from Angela Paxton, a Republican state senator, drew widespread attention in the state. They married in 1986. Last year, Ms. Paxton filed court papers claiming that Mr. Paxton had committed adultery. Mr. Paxton responded by saying that the relationship had been strained by the pressure of public life; he requested privacy.
4. He rode into the Texas attorney general’s office on a Tea Party wave. Mr. Paxton, then a state senator, was first elected attorney general in 2014, beating a veteran state lawmaker and establishment favorite in a Republican primary runoff before cruising through the general election.
5. Scandal quickly followed him into office. Mr. Paxton had not spent eight months on the job when he was indicted on securities fraud charges. He was accused of encouraging investors to put money into a tech company without informing them he was making a commission on their investment. He pleaded not guilty. The case took nearly a decade to resolve; it ended in 2024 when Mr. Paxton reached a deal with prosecutors to avoid a criminal trial. The agreement required Mr. Paxton to pay almost $300,000 in restitution but did not require any admission of guilt. Dan Cogdell, Mr. Paxton’s lawyer, said at the time, “There will never be an admission of guilt because he’s not guilty.”
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