AUSTIN — On Monday, September 11, details of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s extramarital affair were revealed while his wife Sen. Angela Paxton sat at her desk on the Senate floor.
Ken Paxton, however, was not present, having only appeared for the pretrial matters on September 5, as ordered by the Senate.
The well-known affair, occurring several years prior to his most recent election, has been a central point in the claims made in the impeachment articles. Specifically, Article 9 alleged Paxton was bribed by “Nate Paul’s employment of a woman with whom Paxton was having an extramarital affair.”
In exchange for this employment, “Paul received favorable legal assistance from, or specialized access to, the office of the attorney general,” the article claimed.
To testify to the circumstance and effect that the affair seemingly had upon the Office of the Attorney General, the House Board of Managers called Katherine “Missy” Cary, a longtime employee at the OAG and chief of staff under Paxton.
Directed by attorney Terese Buess, Cary attempted to talk about the first time she encountered the apparent mistress, Laura Olsen, at a restaurant. She tried telling the jury about the conversation she overheard, but well-timed objections from Tony Buzbee derailed the testimony.
Buzbee repeatedly objected to Buess’ questions, blocking the details from being relayed on the grounds of hearsay, relevance, and the vague nature of many of the questions. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the trial’s presiding officer, sustained many of the objections, apparently frustrating Buess and derailing testimony.
“There’s no reason to yell,” Buzbee told Buess at one point when she seemingly attempted to speak over both him and Lt. Gov. Patrick.
Nevertheless, eventually, Buess was able to elicit testimony regarding Cary’s knowledge of the affair and how it apparently affected the members of the OAG.
Cary recounted that in a conversation with Paxton, she expressed to him “the ethical implications of a secret affair” and warned him, “There are ethical risks, there are political risks, there are legal risks.”
“These things can open one up to bribery, misuse of office, misuse of state time,” she suggested to Paxton. Cary noted that the AG seemed “contrite and listened to what I was saying very carefully.”
In 2018, AG Paxton gathered members of staff and told them about the affair. Cary said that Sen. Paxton was at the meeting, and the staffer claimed that “my heart broke for her” and “I told her I was sorry that this had happened to her.”
For her part, Sen. Paxton did not appear visibly shaken by the testimony. During breaks throughout the day, she appeared to be calmly talking with the other senators.
Though the Paxtons’ reconciliation has been kept mostly private, General Paxton praised the character of his wife at a speech attended by The Dallas Express in Plano the weekend before the trial.
In addition to Sen. Paxton’s motto of “listen, learn, lead, … there’s a fourth one that I would add,” AG Paxton said. “It would be love.”
“She loves God. She’s loved me amazingly,” AG Paxton continued. “She’s loved our children. She loves all of you, and she loves our grandchildren a lot.”