Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
The embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton avoided an impeachment conviction on Saturday with Texas’ Republican-majority state Senate determining his alleged corruption with a top donor didn’t warrant a conviction.
The vote came after a contentious impeachment trial that split Republicans for and against Paxton. The first to levy corruption allegations were the hand-selected members of Paxton’s own office, who said they turned on their boss after he ignored their pleas to quit giving the real-estate tycoon Nate Paul special treatment.
Paxton, 60, was then hit with 16 impeachment charges in May. Most notably, he was accused of thwarting a federal fraud probe into Paul by hiring an outside attorney to scrutinize federal search warrants for Paul’s home and businesses—a move that puzzled those closest to Paxton and later unraveled a slew of other wrongdoings.