Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial ended its first week with more testimony digging into why his whistleblowing deputies reported their embattled leader to federal law enforcement.
Paxton attorney Mitch Little gave a fiery cross examination of Ryan Vassar, a former deputy attorney general who was the first of the whistleblowers who sued for retaliation to testify. Others who didn’t sue testified earlier in the week.
Little has tried to raise questions about the whistleblowers’ motives and blame news media for Paxton’s troubles. Paxton denies wrongdoing.
“A self-licking ice cream cone is when a bunch of employees at the Attorney General’s Office begin to suspect their boss,” Little said Thursday. “They read it in the media. They believe what the media says. They report it to the FBI and then the media reports that you went to the FBI.”
Paxton is accused of misusing his office to benefit Nate Paul, an Austin real estate investor and political donor, and then retaliating against employees who reported him to the FBI in 2020. Paxton gave Paul special legal attention and help while accepting home renovations and a job for a women with whom he was having an extramarital affair.
Little on Thursday pressed Vassar about whether they had evidence that Paxton committed a crime when he and other former deputies went to the FBI.
Vassar said the whistleblowers had “formed a belief in good faith that the attorney general was involved in criminal activity.”
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