Austin lawyer Mindy Montford could be key witness in Ken Paxton's impeachment. Here's why.

Mindy Montford, a prominent Austin attorney who once ran in a Democratic primary to be a felony court judge, could play a pivotal role as a witness in suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial next month. However, based on a recent filing in the case, it’s unclear whether her testimony would do more to help or harm Paxton, who now happens to be her boss.

For the past two years, Montford has worked for Paxton in the attorney general’s office. Yet it’s her work from her prior employment, as second-in-command in the Travis County district attorney’s office, that caught the attention of lawyers in Paxton’s impeachment proceedings.

An affidavit from Montford that Paxton’s legal team recently made public says that she has direct knowledge of Paxton hiring an outside lawyer in 2020 to investigate a complaint against federal law enforcement officials by Austin real estate developer Nate Paul. That lawyer, Brandon Cammack, sought more than three dozen subpoenas in the matter, which Montford says caught her and others in the district attorney's office by surprise after Paxton aides told her that he did not have authority to do that.

"I believe it was decided at that point for our office to take the necessary steps to cease any and all communication with Mr. Cammack," Montford wrote in the document.

The affidavit is dated January 2021, the same month Montford left the district attorney's office and shortly before she went to work for Paxton. That March, Montford started with the attorney general's office and helped launch a unit that investigates cold cases and missing persons.

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Montford declined to comment on her role in Paxton’s trial, citing a gag order from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that cautions witnesses against making public statements on their expected testimony. Patrick, who in June received $3 million in political contributions from a pro-Paxton political action committee, will preside over the trial in a role similar to a judge.

Cammack's hiring is the basis for one of 20 impeachment articles against Paxton and is tied to at least one more. Texas House lawyers, who are overseeing the impeachment as prosecutors, say the hiring was a misuse of power and supports their position that Paxton committed bribery to help Paul.

The 16 impeachment articles for which Paxton will be tried in the Texas Senate connect him to Paul, a real estate mogul recently indicted in federal court on eight counts of mortgage fraud. House lawyers say Paul funded a Paxton home remodel and hired a woman with whom Paxton had an extramarital affair. In exchange, they say, Paxton initiated the investigation into federal law enforcement officials and intervened to help Paul in additional legal matters.

The American-Statesman reported Thursday that federal prosecutors have seated a grand jury in San Antonio and have called witnesses close to Paxton to testify, citing two sources familiar with the proceeding. This comes three years after the FBI opened an investigation following allegations from aides in Paxton's office that their boss had committed unlawful acts to help Paul.

It's unclear whether Montford will be called to testify at the secretive proceeding in San Antonio, though in her affidavit she says that she's willing to discuss the affidavit with any prosecutor with authority to investigate and that she has been "cooperating with federal authorities."

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Mindy Montford has much to say, but will it benefit Ken Paxton?

As the federal investigation advances in San Antonio, 80 miles southwest of Austin, House prosecutors are preparing for the Sept. 5 impeachment trial. It remains to be seen whether Montford will be called to testify and, if so, by which side.

Lawyers for the defense and the prosecution are at odds over the guidance Montford and the district attorney's office gave to Cammack and the attorney general's office in the investigation into the federal law enforcement agencies.

Paxton’s lawyers say it was a formal referral, and that the district attorney's office helped draft subpoenas for Cammack’s approval and secured authorization for those subpoenas from a judge.

They also say the idea for the attorney general's office to investigate the agencies came from the district attorney's office, not Paxton, and that Paxton did not proceed until after Montford provided him with a legal analysis establishing his authority to investigate. That notion is supported in Montford's affidavit.

“To my knowledge, the idea to refer the Nate Paul matter to the OAG came from our office," Montford wrote. "General Paxton was not certain his office could even review the matter and asked that I forward him the specific statute that would allow his office to review the claims."

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But House lawyers say Montford's office never asked Paxton's office to investigate. Instead, it suggested that Paxton review the complaint to see if it was credible and warranted an investigation. As such, they say Cammack's hiring is an impeachable offense.

Montford says in the affidavit that there was never a formal request to investigate.

“At no time did we endorse or comment on the veracity of Mr. Paul’s complaints,” Montford wrote. “It was our intention to have the OAG review the matter and determine whether or not it rose to the level of a formal criminal investigation. As far as our office was concerned, the matter was tabled on our end until further notice from the OAG.”

The distinction is important because it cuts to another impeachment article levied against Paxton that says his office later issued a report that contained false or misleading statements on the Cammack hiring. The attorney general's office report says that Montford's office conducted an initial investigation and then retained control of the investigation after it asked for and received assistance from Paxton's office. House investigators said in May that those statements are false.

Those disputes — which a recent filing from Paxton's lawyers calls “petty” and “trifling" — could require Montford's testimony to settle.

“Any time you’re suddenly and unintentionally at odds with your boss, I think it’s a challenging position,” said Jeremy Sylestine, an Austin defense lawyer who previously worked as a prosecutor for Montford in the Travis County district attorney’s office. “But Mindy knows how to do her job. I think she will do what the ethical guidelines require her to do, which is tell the truth to a tribunal.”

Montford, whose father is John Montford, a former state senator and a onetime Texas Tech University System chancellor, ran for a felony district court bench in 2010. Six years later, she went to work in the Travis County district attorney's office as first assistant to District Attorney Margaret Moore. Montford supervised about 230 employees in the office.

The lunch in 2020 that started it all

Montford’s affidavit became public through a motion that Paxton’s lawyers filed to dismiss the impeachment count on Cammack’s hiring. In it, Montford describe how she became involved.

She wrote that in May 2020, she and another top lawyer in the district attorney's office met for lunch with Paxton to discuss a complaint from Paul, then a subject of an FBI investigation. Paul and his lawyer were present.

After the meeting, in which Paul said that law enforcement officials used unlawful warrants to raid his home, Montford said that she and key officials in the district attorney's office reasoned that they lacked resources to investigate. As such, they opted to refer the case to another law enforcement agency. Normally, options would have included the FBI or the Texas Department of Public Safety. But since members of both agencies were subjects in Paul’s complaint, they were ruled out. The district attorney's office then turned to the attorney general’s office.

Paxton, over objections from some of his aides, hired Cammack, a then-34-year-old lawyer who had been licensed to practice law for five years. Cammack had run in the same Houston social circles as Paul's lawyer at the time, Michael Wynne, who accompanied Paul at the lunch with Montford. Cammack's title was outside counsel, and his contract was for $300 an hour.

Cammack declined to comment on his involvement in Paxton's impeachment, with his lawyer citing Patrick’s gag order.

More: Texas Lt. Gov. Patrick, who'll oversee Paxton impeachment trial, gets $3M from pro-Paxton PAC

New information in Ken Paxton's attempt to help Nate Paul

Though much of the information from Montford's affidavit had previously been public, one portion is new.

Montford revealed that around Oct. 1, 2020, after Cammack had begun his work in the investigation, she received a call from Paxton, who asked to appear in a Travis County courtroom. Paxton, she said, wanted to oppose a motion by lawyers in his office to quash grand jury subpoenas secured by Cammack. This came on or around the same day that Paxton's aides made the complaint against him to the FBI about his relationship with Paul, then the subject of a separate FBI probe.

This revelation from Montford underscores Paxton’s unusual interest in Paul's legal entanglements and could be used by House lawyers to show he went beyond his normal scope of duties to intervene.

Paxton, Montford revealed, never appeared in court. By the time he learned of the hearing, a judge had already killed Cammack's subpoenas.

"I contacted General Paxton the same day to let him know the motion to quash had already been signed," Montford said.

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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas impeachment: Austin lawyer could be key witness in Paxton trial