A Texas House Republican called out Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday for actions taken during his ongoing whistleblower lawsuit.
Rep. Jared Patterson (R-Frisco) spoke with WFAA on Y’all-itics and criticized Paxton for attempting to quash litigation in his whistleblower lawsuit, claiming that the attorney general can feel “[t]he noose is getting tighter.”
“It’s a matter of time. And look, I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of this year that, you know, Ken Paxton’s on an island somewhere cashing out his campaign account and, you know, trying to skirt law enforcement,” Patterson told WFAA.
Patterson, who voted against impeaching the attorney general in May 2023, claimed the lawsuit seems to have caused a strain on Paxton’s office and its everyday goals.
“It’s gotten so repetitive now that almost every single day, the entire focus of the Office of the Attorney General is about how to protect Ken Paxton from answering any question whatsoever under oath,” he said to WFAA.
Although it is currently unclear whether Paxton will come to a settlement agreement with the whistleblowers, Patterson said he would support any potential agreement if Paxton is also required to testify under oath about the incident.
The ongoing lawsuit revolves around allegations made by four whistleblowers — James “Blake” Brickman, David Maxwell, Mark Penley, and Ryan Vassar — who claimed they were unjustly fired from the Office of the Attorney General for informing the FBI about concerns they had that Paxton abused his power in 2020, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Paxton later requested that the state pay for the $3.3 million settlement agreed on by the two sides, resulting in an impeachment investigation by the Texas House of Representatives.
While the House voted to impeach Paxton, he was later acquitted by the Senate on nearly all of the charges, with the remaining impeachment articles being dismissed entirely.
In addition to discussing the lawsuit, Patterson talked about the ongoing crisis at the border and said he has become “disgusted” by Texas congressional Republicans for their purported lack of action.
“These Republican Congress members come down to the border and have their little press conference down there and have all this tough talk, and it just honestly p****s me off because no one in Congress does anything to help anybody but themselves,” he said to WFAA.
While Patterson criticized the lack of action by those in Washington, he praised Texas for some of the actions the state has taken to deter unlawful migration and said that Texas should be able to defend itself.
“I’m a law-and-order guy, but we believe we have the constitutional right to defend ourselves, and defend our state, and defend this nation. And we’re doing that in more of a way than any other state ever has in the history of the United States,” he said to WFAA.
“And if you look at it, the feds don’t have the authority to just go wherever they want to go. This is specifically in Shelby Park, which is a city park. It’s not federal lands. The State of Texas cannot go onto federal lands, the federal border, without being invited in. The federal government can’t just come in and do whatever they want, wherever they want.”
