Texas AG Ken Paxton agrees to pay $3.3M to whistleblowers, issue public apology
Barnini Chakraborty
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton agreed on Friday to pay $3.3 million and apologize to four former staffers whom he fired or forced out after they accused him of corruption in 2020.
Under the preliminary agreement, the three-term Republican won’t have to admit to allegations of bribery or wrongdoing, which have dogged him for years, but he will make a public apology to the former advisers he called “rogue employees” before booting them from their jobs for taking their concerns to the FBI.
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The whistleblowers accused Paxton of abusing his position in state government to help campaign contributor and real estate developer Nate Paul, who was also the employer of a woman with whom the attorney general had an extramarital affair.
The money awarded will not come directly from Paxton’s pocket but instead from Texas taxpayers.
The settlement will include a line that states the attorney general “accepts that plaintiffs acted in a manner that they thought was right and apologizes for referring to them as ‘rogue employees.'” Paxton’s office will also be required to kill a press release criticizing the former employees, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Paxton, a fierce Donald Trump loyalist who aligned himself with the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and was a speaker at the Jan. 6 rally at the Capitol, was reelected in November. During his primary race, all of his Republican challengers accused him of serious ethical lapses.
Paxton has been able to capitalize on Trump’s popularity in Texas as well as his dislike for the FBI.
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He borrowed a line from the former president and claimed the ex-employees were engaged in a politically motivated witch hunt against him.
While Friday’s news clears up one allegation against Paxton, his headaches are hardly over. He is also under indictment for unrelated fraud charges going back as far as 2015.