Not many people charged with felony crimes go seven years without a trial. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is one of them.
The twists and turns of how the Republican, who is on the verge of winning the GOP nomination for a third term Tuesday, has yet to have his day in court after being indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, has little comparison in American politics. It has changed what it means to be a compromised officeholder in Texas.
Four different judges have watched his case. If a trial ever happens, it will ping-pong from Dallas to Houston to Dallas again. The FBI is investigating him over corruption allegations, and the State Bar of Texas is considering disciplining him for trying to overturn the 2020 election.
There was no movement in the case for nearly a year.
There are no single reasons for the delays. It has become an example of how powerful allies and acts of God can drag out career-threatening criminal charges, and allow a politician to rise above being written off as a political goner.
Andrew Wheat is a leader of the watchdog Texans For Public Justice. One of the criminal charges the Republican is battling is that he failed to register as a securities adviser.
He doubts that a trial will ever happen, and if it ever does, will it have any significance left to it?
If convicted, he faces five to 99 years in prison. His attorneys argue that the holdup on the case is due to the fact that special prosecutors have spent years fighting over how much they should be paid and where the case should be tried.
Texas Republicans have already answered the question of how much the case matters.
The felony charges were still making front pages when he was reelected. He is 20 percentage points behind Bush, who finished second in the March primary, but is still in the running for the nomination.
Bush, the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has staked a comeback on TV ads that call out the indictments and say that the Texas Attorney General is not fit for office. While flaunting former President Donald Trump's endorsement, Paxton has mostly ignored the attacks. Most top Texas Republicans have been restrained in expressing any concerns, but a rare exception came just days ahead of the runoff, when U.S. Sen. John Cornyn called the unresolved case an embarrassment.
Cornyn said last week that the voters would have access to that information.
According to the indictments, Paxton deceived investors in a Dallas-area tech startup by not telling them he was being paid by the company to recruit them. The indictments were handed up just months after he was sworn in as Texas' top law enforcement officer.
Special prosecutors are paid a $300 hourly rate, which was called an abuse of taxpayer money by allies of Paxton. Local leaders in the hometown of Paxton decided to cut the pay.
The criminal case has been going on since then. The court system was brought to a halt by a hurricanes and then by the coronaviruses. Special prosecutors are waiting on the top criminal court in Texas to rule on an appeal to address payment issues and keep the case in Houston.
Philip Hilder, one of the attorneys for the accused, said that the trial was not due to improper influence of Mr. Paxton.
Mr. Paxton invoked his right to swift trial. Mr. Paxton wanted to have his day in court long ago, he said in a statement.
In the intervening years, Paxton has been accused of abusing his office to help a wealthy donor, and he has drawn new scrutiny.
According to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, investigators have been collecting Paul's business records and asking how the developer might have been paying him.
Paul's lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. The attorney general's lawyers did not comment on the FBI investigation.
A two-year corruption indictment against U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat, ended with a hung jury in New Jersey. Attorneys and legal experts in Texas struggled to remember a case that has been going on for years without a resolution.
Even high-level cases in Texas' largest county go to trial in two or three years, according to a state lawmaker who spent three years as a prosecutor.
There is a legitimate criminal violation and justice is not being served because the people being charged have money and power.
The courts are going to be concerned because there is no time limit for the charges to be dropped. David Kwok is co-director of the Criminal Justice Institute at the University of Houston Law Center.
The case hasn't lasted as long as Wheat's watchdog group, but they have scaled back their support for their nonprofit.
The campaign raised more than $2 million in three months after being forced into a second round of voting.
There is a
The person reported from Dallas.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
