AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday urged his supporters to protest at the state Capitol when Republicans in the House of Representatives take up historic impeachment proceedings that threaten to oust him.and suspending him from office over allegations of bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust — just some of the accusations that have trailed him for most of his three terms.
Paxton, a 60-year-old Republican, decried the impeachment proceedings as “political theater” that will “inflict lasting damage on the Texas House,” adding to his earlier claims that it's an effort to disenfranchise the voters who returned him to office in November. The request echoes former President Donald Trump’s call for people to protest his electoral defeat on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Paxton, who spoke at the rally in Washington that proceed the insurrection, called his supporters to the Texas Capitol on a day when the governor is supposed to deliver a Memorial Day address to lawmakers there.
If impeached, Paxton would be suspended from office immediately and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott could appoint an interim replacement. The attorney general would be just the third person in the state’s nearly 200-year history to be impeached and the first statewide officer since former Gov. James “Pa” Ferguson in 1917.
The House will begin considering a resolution calling for Paxton’s impeachment at 1 p.m. Saturday, according to a statement released Friday by the House Committee on General Investigating.