A citizen’s guide to Ken Paxton
Last month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won the state’s Republican runoff for US Senate by nearly 30 points, delivering a resounding defeat to incumbent Senator John Cornyn (R-TX).
Paxton’s victory was even more impressive considering the ethical controversies that have plagued his tenure as an elected official. As Attorney General, Paxton has been indicted on felony securities fraud charges, investigated by the SEC, impeached by the Texas House, and sued by the State Bar of Texas for professional misconduct. He was repeatedly accused of using his government position for personal gain — including by members of his staff.
Paxton began his political career more than two decades ago, when he was elected to the Texas House in 2003. He became a state senator in 2013 and then took office as Texas Attorney General in 2015. Paxton is married to another Texas state senator, Angela Paxton, although the couple is currently getting divorced.
Before Paxton’s political career began, he was a lawyer with less than $175,000 in assets. Now, he is a multimillionaire.
Along with ethical scandals, Paxton has pursued a far-right ideological agenda, enthusiastically embracing President Trump’s most controversial positions. He has played a key role in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, invalidate Obamacare, and roll back rights for LGBTQ Americans.
Paxton’s fate in the November general election could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. Over the next four months, the cost of the race between Paxton and the Democratic candidate, James Talarico, is expected to reach well into the nine figures.
Some Democrats believe that Paxton’s extreme ideology and political baggage make it easier for Talarico to win. However, in his two decades in public office, Paxton has yet to lose an election.
Indicted for felony securities fraud
Within months of taking office as Texas attorney general in 2015, Paxton was indicted by a state grand jury on felony securities fraud charges. The indictment alleged that Paxton recruited investors for tech start-up Servergy without disclosing that the company was compensating him. Paxton worked with Servergy in 2011, while he was still a Texas state representative. His undisclosed agreement with Servergy also led to federal civil charges, but those were dismissed by a judge in 2017.
The Texas charges took nearly a decade to resolve. Paxton reached a deal with prosecutors just before a trial was set to begin in 2024. Paxton agreed to pay $300,000 in restitution, perform community service, and complete ethics training.
Accused of abusing public office to cover up affair
Paxton has acknowledged engaging in an extramarital affair — a notable admission for a politician who emphasizes traditional family values. He was also accused of abusing his position as attorney general to cover it up.
In 2018, Paxton told his staff at the Texas Attorney General’s office that he had an affair with a woman who was then an employee for a Republican state senator. At the meeting, Paxton claimed the affair was over and he was committed to his marriage.
However, in 2020 eight members of Paxton’s staff issued a whistleblower report alleging that the affair was ongoing and that Paxton had abused the attorney general’s office in order to cover it up. This whistleblower report eventually led to a yearslong lawsuit and Paxton’s impeachment by the Texas House.
Most recently, in July 2025, Paxton’s wife filed for divorce on “biblical grounds,” citing “recent discoveries.” It is not exactly clear what those discoveries were, but the divorce filings state Paxton “committed adultery.” A trial related to the divorce proceeding, scheduled for this month, was abruptly cancelled on June 2.
Favors for a political donor
The whistleblowers on Paxton’s staff also alleged that, in 2020, Paxton abused his office to deliver favors to real estate developer and political donor Nate Paul. The whistleblowers claim that Paxton helped Paul after Paul gave a job to the woman with whom Paxton was having the affair. In a deposition, Paul acknowledged hiring the woman, but said it was not a favor to Paxton.
The whistleblowers claimed Paxton took unusual steps to help Paul through his office, potentially breaking the law. In two instances, Paxton intervened in legal cases Paul was involved in. In another, Paxton had his office issue a legal opinion which helped Paul avoid foreclosure on several properties throughout Texas. Finally, in 2020, Paxton paid a private attorney $300 per hour to investigate claims by Paul that state and federal authorities had committed wrongdoing when they raided his office and home the year before.
While no charges were filed against Paxton as a result of the whistleblower complaint, it did result in a lengthy lawsuit over whether Paxton retaliated against four of the whistleblowers by firing them. In 2023, Paxton reached a tentative $3.3 million settlement with the whistleblowers, but it was contingent on approval of the funds by state legislators — which was not granted.
In 2025, a judge ordered Paxton’s office to pay the whistleblowers $6.6 million. Paxton appealed this decision, but dropped his appeal a few months later. The payment still needs to be appropriated by the legislature, and may begin accruing interest if the whistleblowers are not paid soon.
Offering a sweetheart plea deal to a child sex abuser
In April 2026, Paxton’s office entered a plea deal with Adam Hoffman, who was charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy, that resulted in Hoffman pleading guilty to two misdemeanors and spending only 30 days in jail.
The victim’s mother has publicly criticized the deal. In a statement, she accused prosecutors from Paxton’s office of using the promise of not having to testify again to manipulate her son into agreeing to the deal. She also said that the case was “treated differently” because Hoffman’s defense attorney, Gerry Morris, has also represented Nate Paul.
This deal drew significant criticism from Cornyn during the primary, and Talarico has moved to make it a key issue in the general election. Last week, Talarico held a press conference in which he accused Paxton of protecting Hoffman over the child he abused and demanded that the attorney general’s office release all of its files related to the case.
Impeached by Texas Republicans
After the proposed 2023 settlement of the whistleblowers’ lawsuit, the Texas House began investigating the whistleblowers’ initial complaint about Paxton’s affair and relationship to Paul. On May 24, 2023, the lawyers who conducted the investigation presented their findings and three days later, the Texas House — including a majority of Paxton’s fellow Republicans — voted to impeach Paxton, resulting in his suspension from office.
In September, House impeachment managers argued during Paxton’s Senate impeachment trial that his actions to benefit Paul were motivated by a desire to continue his affair, but hide it from his wife and his religious voters. They failed, however, to secure the necessary two-thirds of votes in the Senate. Paxton was acquitted and reinstated as attorney general.
Earlier this month, the lawyer who defended Paxton during his impeachment and securities fraud case endorsed Talarico, saying that Paxton “has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.”
Filing a lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election
Paxton was one of the loudest voices in Trump’s campaign to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. Just weeks after the election, Paxton filed a lawsuit against four battleground states that Biden won, claiming that their pandemic-era voting changes were unconstitutional and thus the states should be prevented from casting their electoral college votes. Trump had high hopes for the case, calling it “the big one.” The Supreme Court rejected the suit shortly after Paxton filed it, saying that Texas lacked standing.
Paxton spoke alongside Trump at the January 6 rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol building. In his speech, Paxton promised that “we will not quit fighting.” After the attack, Paxton falsely claimed that the riot was carried out by antifa, rather than Trump supporters.
Two years after Paxton’s failed lawsuit, the State Bar of Texas sued Paxton for professional misconduct, alleging that he had misrepresented the evidence he claimed to have about election integrity in the four battleground states. The suit could have resulted in Paxton’s disbarment, but it was ultimately dropped.
Pursuing frivolous “voter fraud” cases
From 2018 to 2023, Paxton pursued about 100 criminal cases against people he suspected of voter fraud, some of which involved the 2020 election. Voter fraud is rare in Texas and across the country.
In one case, Paxton accused a local official of illegally possessing 17 absentee ballots, but the lawsuit did not describe how or why he had them. The official named in the lawsuit called it ridiculous, saying to the Texas Tribune, “Nobody runs a ballot harvesting operation for 17 votes. Seventeen-hundred votes? OK, I get it. Maybe even 200 votes, but 17? Give me a break. You know, that’s just stupid.”
Ultimately, many of the cases fell apart after a ruling that the attorney general does not have the power under the Texas constitution to unilaterally pursue criminal charges without local prosecutors signing on to the cases.
Using consumer protection laws to pursue political targets
In 2024, ProPublica published a report detailing Paxton’s extensive use of laws meant to shield consumers from deceptive practices by corporations to target organizations that do not align with his political agenda. The report found that Paxton used consumer protection laws to launch over a dozen investigations over two years but not a single one was triggered by a complaint from a consumer.
Using this approach, Paxton sought to prevent an out-of-state hospital from providing care for trans youth and stop a decades-old non-profit from helping shelter migrants. Other targets included pharmaceutical companies who make medications used in gender affirming care, Covid vaccine manufacturers, and a media watchdog that published an article highlighting how ads for major companies appeared next to racist and antisemitic posts on X.
Leading the charge to nullify Obamacare as unconstitutional
In 2018, Paxton filed a lawsuit on behalf of Texas and nineteen other states arguing that the 2010 Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional. Because the 2018 lawsuit occurred under the Trump administration, the Department of Justice actually joined the plaintiffs in the case, arguing against Obamacare. Eventually, in 2021, the Supreme Court ruled against Paxton.
Blocking abortion access for a woman whose life was in danger
In 2023, Paxton threatened to prosecute any doctor who performed an abortion on Kate Cox, a Texas woman whose life was in danger from a non-viable pregnancy, despite a court order stating that she was eligible for an abortion under state law. Eventually, Cox was forced to leave Texas in order to get an abortion.
Encouraging clerks to deny same-sex marriage licenses
Since the beginning of his tenure as attorney general, Paxton has worked to claw back LGBTQ rights. In 2015, during his first year in the office, Paxton told clerks they could refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in all 50 states and that pro bono lawyers would be available to help them.
Blaming “transgenderism” for Charlie Kirk’s murder
After Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September 2025, Paxton released a statement blaming Kirk’s death on “transgenderism,” among other “corrupted ideologies,” and calling it a “cancer on our culture.”
Ken Paxton: awful human being, consummate Republican candidate in Trump's GOP in 2026. There is no bottom to the barrel.
So happy that someone finally put all of this in writing! What an odious and dangerous person. Thank you Judd as always for cutting through the noise.