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(NEWSMAX) The Texas state House of Representatives s moving forward with a “concocted” impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that was not only done in secret to be suddenly sprung on him, but also is “illegal” under Texas state law, Paxton told Newsmax exclusively Friday night.
“There’s a statute in Texas, which they are not following: This is an illegal impeachment,” Paxton told “Greg Kelly Reports.” “The statute says that if there were complaints prior to the election, there were issues prior to the election, you can’t bring impeachment on issues that occurred, whether true or false, before the election: 19 of the 20 in this complaint were from issues related to the election.
“The second was related to my settlement authority, and they’re saying that I deserved be impeached because I settled a case which required that the Legislature approved the money. They have to actually fund it.”
Enough Texas House Republicans are working with Democrats to impeach Paxton over Memorial Day weekend, he told guest host Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in a “secret” plan hatched after they were “very disturbed” Paxton won reelection.
The victory came after primary and runoff victories against George P. Bush — the grandson of former President George H.W. Bush and son of failed presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who lost the 2016 GOP primary to former President Donald Trump.
“They thought I was going to lose my election to Bush, and they became very disturbed when I won and they concocted this plan — I think months and months ago, maybe right after my reelection — thinking that the voters just were not smart enough to figure this out,” Paxton told Gaetz. “They’re going to fix it.
“And they started working on this about four months ago in secret. I literally first heard about this on Tuesday, where they announced they subpoenaed us. On Wednesday they announced an investigation. On Thursday, they announced impeachment. And now on Saturday, the impeachment is going forward.”
Paxton said his exculpatory information is being withheld from Texas House members before the impeachment vote.
“The members haven’t seen all the information; they haven’t allowed us to participate,” Paxton continued. “We have lots of information that would change the results of their investigation.
“They have refused to let us testify. They have refused to let us give them information. They have refused to allow us to correct things that even they know are wrong, and that’s the process we’re in.
“They want this done because the voters, in their opinion, weren’t work smart enough to get it right, and they’re going to fix it.”
The secret plan to take him down has been ongoing “ever since I was in the Texas House,” when he ran and won against Texas GOP House Speaker Joe Straus, according to Paxton.
“When you expose what these liberal Republicans do, which is basically cut deals with liberal Democrats, they get really angry,” Paxton said. “The last thing they want is somebody around like me who exposes what they do.”
Also, Paxton alleged Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, was working to Texas Democrats to reduce penalties for illegal voting.
“They tried to sneak through legislation two years ago, where they were reducing the penalty for illegal voting, where I would now have to prove that they knew the law when they did it, which meant no prosecutions,” Paxton continued. “We caught them. We exposed it.
“Those are the types of things that Phelan finds infuriating. And unfortunately for him, we caught him and we exposed it despite the fact that he’s a Republican.”
While the House can impeach Paxton, the attorney general is going to be on trial in the Senate, where his wife, Texas Sen. Angela Paxton, might be a juror.
“I have a lot more confidence in the Senate,” Paxton told Gaetz, praising Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as a “great Republican.”
“He’s done a good job trying to get legislation out this session. Unfortunately, the House speaker has killed much of our great legislation, and now they’re wasting time on this, instead of passing some of the great legislation from the Senate.
“There’s always issues when you’re in politics, because not every Republican is conservative, and some of the more moderate senators may not be supportive as well, but that’s OK.
“I think we at least feel like we’ll have a fair shot to present evidence and expose the lies of the House.”
Paxton is steadfast he will be exonerated in a Senate impeachment trial.
“Literally everything that they have in there, we did because we thought it was the right thing to do,” Paxton concluded. “And I’m not saying that, you know, somebody couldn’t have a disagreement about how we handled one thing or another, but overall, I’m pretty pleased with how this office is run over the term that I’ve been in here.
“No one runs everything perfectly. There’s no perfect attorney general that’s run every office.
“We have to deal with 4,200 employees, 38,000 cases. Have we made every perfect decision? No. Have we made mistakes? Yes, but I feel very good about the things that they brought up. I wouldn’t change them.”
