AUSTIN — During a cross-examination of a former employee of Attorney General Ken Paxton, the witness admitted to reporting Paxton to federal law enforcement without any evidence of unlawful activity on the part of his boss.
Ryan Vassar, a former deputy attorney general under Paxton, was called to the stand on the third day of the attorney general’s impeachment trial, as reported by The Dallas Express. He claimed that Paxton had pressured him and other Office of the Attorney General (OAG) employees to disclose records, issue opinions, and allocate OAG resources to benefit a man named Nate Paul.
Paul, an Austin-based businessman and one-time Paxton donor, has been at the center of the allegations against the impeached attorney general, with House impeachment managers claiming he bribed and exerted undue influence over Paxton.
Vassar eventually went with several other high-ranking OAG staffers to the FBI and reported Paxton for what they believed was unlawful conduct.
However, during cross-examination on Thursday, Vassar admitted that the whistleblowers went to the FBI without any evidence, instead relying on a “good faith belief.”
Mitch Little, one of Paxton’s defense attorneys, pressed Vassar on his testimony.
“Mr. Vassar, please, I want to get this straight — you went to the FBI on September 30, [2020], with your compatriots and reported the elected attorney general of this state for a crime without any evidence?” Little asked.
“That’s right,” Vassar said. “We took no evidence.”
As Little drove the point home for the jury of Texas senators, Vassar said, “We had no evidence that we could point to, but we had reasonable conclusions we could draw.”
When Vassar was asked if he and his colleagues gathered any evidence of the alleged crimes they reported to the FBI, he said, “I don’t recall that we collected any evidence.”
After Vassar stated again that he had a good faith belief of wrongdoing, Little retorted, “Respectfully, sir, we are not here for your good faith belief.”
Vassar also asserted that it had not occurred to him to call or reach out to Paxton before reporting him to the FBI. “I don’t think I owed General Paxton anything,” he added.
Later in the cross-examination, Vassar also said that Paxton had never instructed him to act contrary to the law at any point during his employment. Furthermore, he said every action the whistleblowers took while at the OAG had been legal.
After watching the cross-examination, Matt Rinaldi, chair of the Texas Republican Party, criticized the Texas House leadership, including Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) and Rep. Andrew Murr (R-Junction), for launching the impeachment effort against Paxton.
“Every House Republican that bought Phelan and Murr’s BS and voted for this impeachment should be embarrassed,” he said.
However, on the trial’s fourth day, Vassar took the stand again and seemingly attempted to walk back his apparent admission to a lack of evidence during cross-examination the day before.
Reiterating, “I believe I was a witness to criminal activity that had occurred by General Paxton,” Vassar clarified that he and his associates went to the FBI with “information tending to show that General Paxton abused his office.”
He attributed the shift in his answer to a misunderstanding of what he had been asked by Paxton’s lawyers.
“The way that I interpreted opposing counsel’s question was [whether we brought] documents,” Vassar claimed.