Attorney General Ken Paxton’s claim that the State Bar of Texas is targeting Republicans for challenging the results of the 2020 election just expanded to include his chief deputy Brent Webster, who was named in a lawsuit that charged him with “misconduct.”
The state bar’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline was acting on complaints from other lawyers in the state. A commission investigation into the complaints led to a lawsuit against Webster in Williamson County Court on May 6.
“The commission said Webster had violated the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct by engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation,” the Texas Tribune reported.
“His allegations were not supported by any charge, indictment, judicial finding and/or credible or admissible evidence, and failed to disclose to the Court that some of his representations and allegations had already been adjudicated and/or dismissed in a court of law,” the complaint said.
But Paxton told Breitbart News the lawsuits are a way to discredit and destroy Republicans in the state ahead of a contentious 2022 midterm election, including his staff.
‘My staff is instrumental in implementing conservative policies for the State of Texas,” Paxton said. “The woke left is trying to take out my staff—to stop my policies. It’s clear that their tactics will become more and more desperate as they realize their far-left agenda will be soundly rejected this November.”
Paxton put a statement on social media about what he called a “witch hunt.”
“I have recently learned that the Texas State Bar — which has been waging a months-long witch-hunt against me — now plans to sue me and my top deputy for filing Texas v. Penn: the historic challenge to the unconstitutional 2020 presidential election joined by nearly half of all the states and over a hundred members of Congress,” Paxton tweeted. “I stand by this lawsuit completely.”
In September 2021 Paxton released a statement about the state bar’s investigation into his Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit:
Attorney General Paxton filed an objection to the Texas State Bar’s appointment of a one-sided and partisan “Investigatory Hearing Panel” to investigate him and his staff for defending the rights of the State of Texas by challenging the constitutionality of the 2020 election procedures in four states. Initially, the State Bar dismissed all ethics complaints related to that lawsuit, Texas v. Pennsylvania, et al. Yet months later, higher-ranking Bar officials ordered their staff to reinstate select complaints against Attorney General Paxton and his staff. In doing so, the State Bar has stepped far outside the limited administrative authority it has to regulate the practice of law and protect clients, and is attempting instead to control the sovereign actions taken by the State of Texas through the duly-elected Attorney General.
The State Bar makes no attempt to hide its partisan behavior. It ignored its own rules to impose an Investigatory Panel comprised of six unelected, left-leaning lawyers and non-lawyer activists strategically drawn from Travis County. As a group, this panel has donated thousands of dollars to federal, state, and local Democrat candidates, voted consistently in Democrat primaries for over a decade, and several have maintained highly partisan social media accounts.
“Texans know exactly what’s going on here,” said Attorney General Paxton. “It is no surprise that a cabal of President Biden donors and voters are finding a way to retaliate against the work of my office for the State of Texas’s challenge to the constitutionality of the 2020 elections. Nearly half the nation joined Texas’s cause and two Supreme Court Justices voted to take up the case. I stand by our lawsuit. This is a total misuse of the Bar’s power and responsibility.”
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick issued statements supporting Paxton.
“These allegations raise separation-of-powers questions under our Constitution. I am confident that the Supreme Court of Texas, to which the State Bar of Texas is ultimately accountable, will ensure that the judicial branch upholds the law,” Abbott said.
“The State Bar of Texas’ Investigatory Panel’s attack against Attorney General Paxton appears politically motivated and in violation of Article 2, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution, guaranteeing a separation of powers among the branches of government,” Patrick said. “It is clear the Investigatory Panel, stacked with Biden and Democrat donors and activists, has weaponized its state-granted power, intended to protect a fair and just practice of law, to instead launch an attack over political differences. These actions undermine the integrity of the Investigatory Panel and the State Bar of Texas as a whole.”
Paxton’s lawsuit, Texas v. Pennsylvania, which alleged that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin violated the United States Constitution by changing election procedures through non-legislative means, was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections,” the Dec. 11, 2020, SCOTUS decision said.
A runoff election between Paxton and George P. Bush for the Republican nomination for Attorney General takes place on May 24.
The case No. 22-0594-C368, Commission for Lawyer Discipline v. Webster, in District Court of Williamson County, Texas.
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter.
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