'Something really bad was going on,' former Ken Paxton aide says in support of impeachment

In laying out their case that suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton abused his power and should be removed from office, Texas House impeachment lawyers are pointing to text messages, travel records and hours of witness interviews that they say show Paxton ignored pressing state matters to instead help his friend and now-indicted real estate developer Nate Paul.

Presented in three large volumes released late Thursday, the documents paint a picture of deputies in the attorney general's office pleading with Paxton in 2020 to cut ties with Paul, the subject of a federal mortgage fraud investigation, only for the attorney general to ignore them and continue to provide Paul with unusual access to the office, which helped the developer fight his many civil and criminal battles.

The nature of Paxton's relationship with Paul is the focus of the Sept. 5 impeachment trial in the Texas Senate, where House lawyers will seek to permanently remove Paxton from office. All 16 impeachment articles against Paxton involve Paul, who House lawyers say bribed Paxton by paying for a home remodel and giving a job to a woman with whom Paxton had an extramarital relationship.

"Ken Paxton did proceed in an immoral and unethical way, and that is how I feel about it," Andrew Wicker, a former Paxton aide, told House investigators on May 19, according to interview transcripts.

More: Paxton used fake Uber name 'Dave P' for secret meetings with mistress, new filings allege

Wicker, who ran errands for Paxton and traveled with him to meetings, said the office spent significant resources in looking into Paul's many matters.

"We had a number of issues that I know were top of mind, not only for the general, in terms of policy and initiatives, and we were spending an increasingly large share of our calendar time focused on Nate Paul and those cases," he said.

The documents released Thursday include new witness interviews from this year that support the House's theory that Paxton overstepped his authority to help Paul, a political campaign donor who contributed $25,000 to Paxton in 2018.

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Paul at the time was dealing with three issues that triggered Paxton's help: an FBI investigation into financial crimes; a lawsuit against the local nonprofit Mitte Foundation; and foreclosure sales after he failed to make payments on some of his properties.

Paul, in June, was arrested and charged in an eight-count federal indictment for mortgage fraud — a case that does not involve Paxton.

Blake Brickman, a former Paxton top aide who has since sued the attorney general's office for wrongful termination, told House lawyers that Paxton's interest in Paul's matters tied up "the resources of the most senior people in the agency."

"During the pandemic, when there was substantive, real issues going on, the attorney general was literally obsessed with anything related to Nate Paul," Brickman said in early May, weeks before the House voted overwhelmingly to impeach Paxton and refer the matter to the Senate.

"It wasn't hard to put all these different pieces together," he said.

Nate Paul, bribery & whistleblowers: Breaking down the investigation into Texas AG Ken Paxton

House lawyers on Thursday released nearly 4,000 pages of documents and 150 individual exhibits aimed to strengthen a string of motions from earlier in the week that included a revelation that Paxton and Paul hailed rides with a joint Uber account — using the fake name 'Dave P' — and concealed their communications using burner phones. Many of the trips show Paxton going to an apartment in Southwest Austin where House lawyers say he visited his alleged mistress, a former Capitol staffer named Laura Olson.

Paxton, who has been suspended from office since late May, has made general denials against all allegations. He is seeking to avoid his impeachment trial by asking the Senate through his lawyers that all articles against him get dismissed on the grounds that they lack evidence or, even if they are true, do not constitute an impeachment offense.

Brickman, who worked for eight months in the attorney general's office as a Paxton deputy, said that Paxton's involvement with Paul became such a concern that he and another top aide, first assistant Jeff Mateer, pulled him aside in July 2020. At the time, Paxton had wanted to personally argue a motion in a Travis County courtroom in a lawsuit involving Paul and local nonprofit the Mitte Foundation. This was seen as highly unusual as Paxton's practice is to assign rank-and-file attorneys to argue motions.

Brickman said the conversation ended with Paxton agreeing to not argue the motion and that the attorney general's office would no longer do anything related to Paul. That representation proved false when Paxton continued to investigate Paul's matters, Brickman said.

"I knew at this point that something really bad was going on, and I probably did not know the full story," Brickman said.

More: What could Austin real estate developer Nate Paul's federal indictment mean for Ken Paxton?

During a February interview with House investigators, David Maxwell, Paxton's former assistant director of law enforcement, said that he and others were feeling Paxton "putting a lot of pressure" on them to look into a legal situation involving a "strong supporter."

Maxwell began researching Paul, eventually meeting with him and his legal counsel in a recorded sit-down interview that June. In the meeting, Paul argued that federal law enforcement unfairly and improperly executed a search warrant on some of his properties the year before, and as a result he sought to view both the search warrant and affidavit tied to the investigation.

Maxwell said that while Paul should get access to the search warrant, which Paul claimed had been digitally altered to his detriment, that he did not have a right to the affidavit. When asked why he was seeking the advice of the attorney general's office, Paul answered that Paxton had told him his office could help with the situation and investigate federal agencies.

Maxwell disagreed. He then returned to Paxton to say the office needs to separate from Paul.

"On one occasion when I talked to him directly about it, I told him, I said, 'General Paxton, Nate Paul is running a Ponzi scheme that would make Billie Sol Estes envied. It's huge. You need to get away from this guy. He's a criminal,'" Maxwell said. "And he just blew me off, so he wouldn't talk to me anymore."

In a group text between attorney general office employees, while commiserating about their bosses, Maxwell said the investigation sought by Paxton and Paul would be illegal.

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

The documents also address Paxton's intervention in a foreclosure sale, and the role played by Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola.

Hughes is said to have been a “straw requestor” for a legal opinion that confirmed COVID-19 restrictions limiting in-person events to 10 people or less also applied to foreclosure sales.

The request, the House lawyers allege, was made by Paxton in response to foreclosures on Paul’s properties.

“So, he was asking his closest friend in the Legislature to ask him for a legal opinion,” Brickman said.

Hughes, a former Paxton roommate and tenant, will sit as a juror in the impeachment trial, along with 29 other senators. Hughes this summer told the American-Statesman he would be impartial.

Brickman said he was unaware of the situation until Ryan Vassar, the deputy attorney general originally tasked with writing the opinion, came to him.

“I wasn't involved in this at all, but when I heard about it, I immediately thought this is another Nate Paul situation, which I ended up being right about,” Brickman said.

Paul cited that attorney general opinion in a court filing to argue against a foreclosure sale moving forward, House lawyers say.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Former Texas AG Ken Paxton aide: 'Something really bad was going on'