Texas AG Ken Paxton impeachment proceedings to precede securities fraud trial

Suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) will face impeachment proceedings in the state Senate before his long-delayed securities fraud case goes to trial, after the presiding judge agreed to postpone discussion of a trial date until October.

Paxton’s lawyers asked state District Judge Andrea Beall on Thursday to delay setting a trial date until after the attorney general’s impeachment trial has concluded — a move supported by the special prosecutors in the case.

Beall agreed to hold off on discussions about a trial date until an Oct. 6 hearing, about one month after the impeachment trial is set to begin.

Paxton was indicted on two felony counts of securities fraud in 2015. However, the case has been drawn out over eight years due to various pretrial disputes, including where the trial should be held. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in June that the trial should remain in Houston, settling a key issue in the case.

“I know that everybody is concerned about how the wheels of justice have seemed to move at a glacial pace over the course of the last eight years,” Brian Wice, one of the special prosecutors, said Thursday. “I think today is the first step on the journey of a thousand miles to pick up the pace.”

The attorney general’s impeachment trial is set to begin on Sept. 5. The Republican-majority Texas House voted 121-23 to impeach Paxton in late May on a range of allegations, including bribery, obstruction of justice and making false statements, as well as more overarching accusations of dereliction of duty, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust.

Paxton has denounced the impeachment as a “politically motivated sham” and said he will not testify at his trial in the state Senate.

“The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just,” Paxton said in the wake of the May vote. “It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning.” 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.