Ultimately, Bangert and six other top staffers reported Paxton to the FBI on Sept. “We were devoting far more resources to Nate Paul than we ever should have,” Bangert said. Even so, he said, Paxton’s main focus continued to be Paul’s affairs.
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“It was unconscionable.”Īs Paxton made his demands, Bangert said, the COVID-19 pandemic was raging, local jurisdictions were clamoring for guidance on how to respond, and the office was consumed with a massive legal case against Google. “I was deeply concerned that the name, authority and power of our office had been, in my view, hijacked to serve the interests of an individual against the interests of the broader public,” Bangert testified.
Despite objections from senior staff, Paxton hired an outside lawyer to investigate Paul’s claim that his home and businesses were improperly searched by law enforcement in 2019.Shortly after, Paxton directed Bangert and staff to quickly whip together a legal opinion that would prohibit public foreclosure sales due to COVID-19 restrictions - a position that would’ve benefitted Paul, who had properties facing foreclosure days later.Paxton asked Bangert to overrule two previous decisions by the office of the attorney general that denied Paul access to documents related to a law enforcement investigation into Paul’s businesses.Paxton, Bangert testified, directed him and other members of the attorney general’s leadership team to take three actions that he described as “concerning” and “bizarre.” Over two days of testimony, Bangert walked senators through nine months of Paxton’s “alarming” 2020 behavior, saying he repeatedly expressed concerns with Paxton over his demands to work on Paul’s behalf. We understood the gravity of that act,” Bangert testified.
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“We were protecting the interests of the state and ultimately, I believe, protecting the interests of the attorney general and, in my view, signing our professional death warrant. Instead, Bangert said, he and other whistleblowers concluded that Paxton was misusing the agency’s power to help one private individual, Paul - in violation of the agency’s responsibility to work on the public’s behalf - by instructing top deputies to draft legal opinions that benefited Paul and hiring an outside attorney to investigate his business rivals. “It was not a mutiny,” he said, rejecting prior characterizations by Paxton’s lawyers that his top staffers were trying to stage a coup in the attorney general’s office.
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