Anthony Holm, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s spokesman, defends his client over fraud allegations starting in 2004 when Paxton was serving as a member of the Texas House of Representatives.
“This is wrong, and nobody should have to tolerate it,” Holm said. “These dominos are falling and the victim is Ken Paxton.”
In June, two Houston prosecutors announced they planned to present their case against Paxton to a grand jury in the next few weeks. The prosecutors said they found new evidence to prove that Attorney General Paxton is guilty of a first-degree felony.
“Over a decade, Ken Paxton referred 6 people to an investment manager,” Holm said, “and for some of those six people he received a referral fee.”
Holm said Paxton communicated with the Texas State Securities Board, who said the only penalty was a $1000 civil fine for not maintaining a continuous registration with the board.
“We didn’t dispute it, we paid it and they said there was no criminal event here, and that was it,” Holm said. “We were told that it was a done deal–that it was case over.”
However the case resurfaced in June when a Travis County District Attorney said they wanted a second look at the case, and a Collin County blogger decided to take matters into their own hands.
“An activist in Collin County got a list of the names on the grand jury, mailed them all information and said you gotta go after this guy, you need to take on your own investigation,” Holm said.
In the letter to the grand jury, the blogger wrote, “The law is the law, and nobody should be above it, especially not the state’s highest ranking law enforcement.”
Holm said his client is not receiving the same rights and privileges and fairness in a court that every individual is expected to receive.
“It’s incredibly traumatic to Attorney General Paxton and his family, and frankly we should all have pause when there has been no indictment, and grand juries have been tampered with, and the two prosecutors behind this case are inexperienced and might have a professional conflict of interest with Ken Paxton,” Holm said. “The people they defend are the people that the Attorney General is charged with putting in jail.”
We reached out to the prosecutors for comment, but have not received a response by the time this article was published.
First-degree felonies are punishable by up to life in prison.
