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Paxton Impeachment Trial Day 8: Summary of Paxton's Defense [1]

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Date: 2023-09-14

Apologize if the reporting on this case has been choppy--between watching, note-taking and trying to keep the rest of life going. Another post summarizes the House Managers main case against Paxton. It was created from my own notes, notes from a friend who is tuning in sporadically from Austin, and Tribune articles over the past week and a half. Although this post probably misses a lot of the detail, hope it gives folks a less fragmented view of the case.

Catching up from yesterday evening…after a lot of sudden changes…

Paxton’s attorneys have withdrawn their dispositive motions for directed verdict. The House Managers have withdrawn their motion to change the rules to allow a single vote to determine if Paxton should be able to hold office in the future. Now there will be votes on each article, and if Paxton is impeached on any article, there will be a separate vote on whether Paxton should be barred from every serving in public office.

Although the House Managers “rested” yesterday, they still have about 2 hours and 45 minutes—which were likely strategically reserved for cross-examination. Paxton’s side had 8 hours and 38 minutes.

Yesterday, the House Managers were going to call Laura Olson, the women with whom Paxton had been having an affair. Although Olson arrived at the Capital and was thus technically “present,” by agreement of the parties she was deemed “unavailable” to testify and released without testifying. Legal reasons for “unavailability” are that Olson was planning to assert her Fifth Amendment rights or was incapacitated in some way. Not sure what anyone expected Olson to add, because by now the affair is an accepted fact. Probably more important to focus on Paxton’s lies, subterfuge and manipulation than his outside recreation. One can imagine how this might have troubled all of the Christian evangelicals Paxton had working for him.

So today we heard the presentation of Paxton’s case. There has been a complete shift on both sides. During the House Managers case, all the attorneys were older white men, the “big guns” (and probably more expensive) attorneys. Now that we are in the “secondary” part of the trial, we are seeing young women. You know both sides view this as less important when they let the ladies come out. Imagine that the “big boys” are probably working on their closing arguments. Questioning on Paxton’s side is now being conducted by attorneys who currently work in the AGs office, potentially saving some taxpayer money. They also have a much easier job, because they are co-workers questioning each other about a case they have probably been talking about together for months.

During the presentation of the House Managers case, the high-profile attorneys leading the presentation all apparently knew each other. There was a certain degree of “good old boy” deference that comes from long years of being on opposite sides yet remaining friends at the end of the day. This is not the case with the younger attorneys here. The exchanges are swifter, sharper, and subtly more hostile. The testimony, however, hardly contained anything that could be considered a “bombshell.”

This morning we heard from Justin Gordon (questioned by Allison Collins) and a Mr. Kinghorn (did not get his full name in the beginning—questioned by Chris Hilton), who are both current employees at the AG (and who have understandable interest in wanting to remain employed). Their testimony got into the weeds of AG process and procedures, attempting to demonstrate that all the stuff that happened in the Nate Paul incidents was nothing out of the ordinary.

Next Amy Hilton (think she is Chris’ wife) questioned Henry De La Garza, who is currently employed as AGs head of HR and employment issues. Here the objective is to argue that the termination of the whistleblowers was justified by “legitimate nonretaliatory reasons”. They are also promoting the AG’s legal position that the whistleblowers should be exempt from the protection of the Whistleblower statute because they are “high level policy makers.” Which begs the question why Paxton brought a settlement offer of over $3.3 million to the House Budget Committee.

Cross exam clarified that the Whistleblower Act only covers employees who are still employed. Once an employee is terminated, protection no longer applies. Argument ensued about whether any reasonable employee would tell their boss first before going to law enforcement. On cross, the witness admitted that he “relied” on what Brent Webster presented to him, and “false information could affect” his analysis.

Next Anthony Osso examines Deputy First Assistant Grant Dorfman. There was some argument about whether a report has anything to do with an article of impeachment. They set the scene describing the effect of the 2020 election, Covid, and a huge antitrust lawsuit against Google which created a giant workload for the AG. There was some bragging here about being the first state AG to win a preliminary injunction against an executive order on immigration. Dorfman pushed the politics button touting multiple rulings against Biden/DACA/Title 42, along with a settlement of $8 billion in the Google antitrust litigation.

Dorfman described responding to Biden Executive Orders like whack-a-mole: “We were in court almost every day, but you can only keep up this pace for so long.” The intent was to portray the AGs office as still being “effective” under Paxton notwithstanding the loss of personnel.

Dorfman than segued into an apologetics for the AGs “Plea to the Jurisdiction” strategy and got into the legal weeds. According to Dorfman, the AG files these as a routine defense in 90% of cases. They certainly used this strategy to tie up the Paxton and Webster bar complaints. Although Dorfman attempted to make the case that this was a “routine” strategy and not some nefarious plot to keep the truth from the public, he admitted on cross exam that a Plea to Jurisdiction stays all discovery, so Paxton would not be required to testify under oath while the case was pending.

Another line of questioning got into the weeds of the whistleblower settlement negotiations. The argument here was that parties on both sides were concerned about a pending Supreme Court ruling and both sides were motivated to resolve the case and avoid the risk of uncertainty. There was additional argument that the OAG (i.e., the state) would be the party responsible for paying the lawsuit and not Paxton personally. The State can still decline to pay due to sovereign immunity.

As with De La Garza, Dorfman admitted on cross-exam that he had never spoken with any of the terminated employees and based his decision about the correctness of their termination on information supplied by either Paxton or Webster.

Here Buzbee came back into action to state that Paxton rested. So, the presentation of each sides primary case is over.

After a fairly lengthy break for a conference, the parties announced that they will be closing tomorrow. There will be no “rebuttal.” Each side will have one hour, and then the case will go to the Texas Senate acting as “jury.” Then we wait for a vote.

You can watch closing arguments on the livestream here beginning at 9 am tomorrow (September 15th)

Be sure to check out the Texas Tribune for more coverage and analysis

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/14/2193366/-Paxton-Impeachment-Trial-Day-8-Summary-of-Paxton-s-Defense

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