Federal prosecutors have reportedly established a grand jury in San Antonio and are calling witnesses close to impeached Texas Attorney General Kenneth Paxton to testify.

There is no indication about the purpose of the jury, how long it has been meeting, or which witnesses are being called to testify, according to the Austin American-Statesman, which broke the story on Thursday.

Grand juries are often used by prosecutors to determine whether a potential defendant should be indicted.

The alleged existence of the grand jury came as news to Paxton’s attorney, Dan Cogdell, who, just the day before the story broke, had indicated he had been unable to get any clarity on whether such an investigation was underway.

“All I know is that no one from either the DOJ or the U.S. attorney’s office has been able to answer my most basic questions about any possible ongoing investigation regarding Ken,” Cogdell said on August 9, per the Austin American-Statesman.

Federal investigators began looking into Paxton in October 2020 after multiple top aides told the FBI that he allegedly misused his position and accepted bribes from Nate Paul, an Austin-based real estate developer, per the Austin American-Statesman.

Paxton allegedly received a home remodel in exchange for helping Paul with multiple legal cases. Additionally, Paul allegedly hired a woman that was having an extramarital affair with Paxton, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman.

In February, prosecutors from the Justice Department took over the case. 

The news regarding the federal grand jury comes less than one month from Paxton’s impending impeachment trial, which is set to begin in the Texas Senate on September 5.

The Republican-majority Texas House impeached Paxton on May 27 with a vote of 121-23, alleging that he misused his power to benefit Paul.

Similarly, the House alleged in the 20 Articles of Impeachment that Paxton misapplied public resources during a legal battle after he entered “into a settlement agreement with the whistleblowers that provides for payment of the settlement from public funds,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.

Paxton reportedly asked the Texas Legislature to pay the $3.3 million settlement using taxpayer funds. Impeachment investigators for the House claim that this request played a role in the eventual investigation into Paxton, per Fox 4 KDFW.

David Coale, an attorney who is not involved with any of Paxton’s cases, said that Paxton’s team has various options for how to proceed, including requesting to push back the impeachment trial amid the ongoing federal investigation.

“This is a question for Mr. Paxton, his team, about how to best position him and the team to defend on these different fronts,” said Coale, per CBS Texas. 

“The standard litigation 101 playbook is you try to deal with the criminal cases, then move back to civil cases. This is clearly not a standard 101-type of situation. Impeachment is the sort of hybrid of criminal and civil. Some decisions are going to have to get made by his defense team that, really, no defense team has ever had to evaluate in recent memory.”

Paxton previously filed a motion to dismiss the majority of the Articles of Impeachment filed against him by the Texas House. The motion requested that Articles 1 through 7 and 9 through 20 be thrown out, leaving just Article 8, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.