The Texan Podcast - Inside the Impeachment: Paxton on Trial — Day 1

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

Subscribe to support The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/We’ve completed the first day of the impeachment trial — and a lot has already happened. Here’s some highlights:The Senate voted to deny all of Attorney General Paxton’s motions to dismiss the articles of impeachment, with all motions receiving only six to ten affirmative votes from some Republicans.Motions needed a majority of 16 to be approved, while conviction on any of the articles of impeachment will need 21 votes.Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick gave more specifics about the timeline of the trial, saying that he expects to meet every weekday from 9 AM to 6 PM, and possibly on Saturdays except for this upcoming Saturday.In a decision on another motion, Patrick ruled that Paxton cannot be compelled to testify at trial, highlighting the similarities between criminal trials and the impeachment trial.Patrick, his legal advisor for the trial, senators, Senate staff, and witnesses were all sworn in under oath.Attorney General Ken Paxton pleaded not guilty to all articles of impeachment.House General Investigating Chair Andrew Murr gave the opening statement for the impeachment managers, while attorneys Tony Buzbee and Dan Cogdell gave opening statements on behalf of Attorney General Ken Paxton.Jeff Mateer, the former first assistant attorney general and one of the eight whistleblowers, was called to testify by the House Impeachment Managers.Debate over excluding evidence from the trial because of “privileged communication.”

Hey, this is Brad Johnson, senior reporter with The Texan. We've completed the first day of the Ken Paxton impeachment trial and a lot has happened already. Here's a recap of the big events of the day that we will dive deeper into during this episode. The Senate voted to deny all of Attorney General Paxton's motion to dismiss the articles of impeachment with all motions receiving only six to ten affirmative votes from some Republicans. Motions needed a majority of 16 to be approved, while conviction of any of the articles of impeachment will need 21 votes. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick gave more specifics about the timeline of the trial, saying that he expects to meet every weekday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

and possibly on Saturdays, except for this upcoming Saturday. In a decision on another motion, Patrick ruled that Paxton cannot be compelled to testify at trial, highlighting the similarities between criminal trials and the impeachment trial. Patrick, his legal advisor for the trial, senators, Senate staff, and witnesses were all sworn in under oath. Attorney General Ken Paxton pleaded not guilty to all articles of impeachment. House General Investigating Chair Andrew Murr gave the opening statement for the impeachment managers, while attorneys Tony Busby and Dan Cogdell gave opening statements on behalf of Attorney General Ken Paxton. Jeff Mateer, the former First Assistant

Attorney General and one of the eight whistleblowers, was called to testify by House impeachment managers. And it concluded with debate over excluding evidence from the trial because of, quote, privileged communication. Hello, everybody. This is Brad Johnson, senior reporter at The Texan. Today on Inside the Impeachment, Paxton on Trial, we're going to discuss the first day of the Paxton Court of Impeachment that gaveled in on Tuesday. Today I am joined by Hayden Sparks, who's been in the courtroom, use that in air quotes, the Texas Senate, the gallery, he's been sitting there all day following the events. And then Matt Stringer, who's been watching from the office along with me. Hayden, walk us through what this was like. This is the first time in a hundred years that the Texas Senate has gaveled in as a court of impeachment to consider pending charges against a statewide elected official. What was it like? Well, for the first few hours, it was pretty

uneventful. It was mostly standing in line and waiting for the Capitol to open and the chamber to open and waiting for them to work through all of the logistics of having hundreds of people show up for, I hesitate to call it a trial because there are so many things about this that have nothing to do with judicial principles and judicial branch of government. All of this is a legislative proceeding. So while we use all of this courtroom terminology and we say it's a court and Dan Patrick is the judge or the senators or the jury, I am using all of that language loosely because it is an analogy that the constitution uses, but it is a very imperfect one. And the first few hours of the day was, uh, were pretty uneventful. We, we, um, uh, were there, uh, a couple hours. Well, I, I take that back. We got there at about

five 30 this morning and, um, the Capitol grounds were obviously still closed, but we were hedging against there being crowds and not being able to get a seat. So we made sure to get there a plenty of time and we were able to speak to some Paxton supporters who were gathered outside the Capitol. You were there before dawn. We were there before dawn. The sun was rising as we were waiting at the south side of the Capitol, or yes, the south side of the Capitol to go through the security checkpoint. And then we went upstairs and there were two lines, the press line and the gallery line, and the gallery line went much more quickly.

But I was taken aback by how few people there were there there was plenty of space in the gallery i agree it was probably only half full yeah they had what like a quarter of it maybe cordoned off um you you couldn't sit in the far end behind the the um the dais correct i think they had it from pictures i saw they had i saw people sitting over there i pictured it being packed with people on both sides of it but from pictures I saw they had roped off. I saw people sitting over there. I saw people sitting over there. Maybe that was the beginning. It was open. I pictured it being packed with people on both sides of it, but it wasn't. There were plenty of seats left after everyone took their seats.

And it seemed like a regular day in the legislature, aside from the fact of what was happening. There wasn't a huge crowd. There was a lot more media present. Two huge sections full of press and media. Right, and there were people from outlets from across the country. I mean, the media presence was definitely greater, and the press section was crowded. But the general seating in the

gallery uh was a lot more spaced out and um so if you're thinking about coming to part of this trial give it a shot it's not too crowded at all and um it'll become even less so as the days go by too as i think so fewer people actually want to sit around and watch this. Especially once they start getting into the weeds of the testimony. And today, forgive me if my memory is not perfect right now, but today, toward the end of the day, Rusty Hardin, one of the attorneys for the board of managers and Dan Cogdell and Tony Busmey, the attorneys for Paxton were quibbling over an exhibit. And I'll summarize this, this disagreement they were having. It was, no, this is your exhibit. No, this is my, or your exhibit. No, this is y'all's exhibit. No, this is y'all's exhibit. So finally they took a break and Dan Patrick said, okay, we're going to get this

sorted out over the evening and we're gone for the day. And that was about five, five minutes till five o'clock. So that was, that was what we just came from was Dan Patrick saying, okay. And I don't think anybody, anyone was flustered by that point. He just said, we've got a lot to sort through. We have a lot to sift with these exhibits. It's time to go home. So instead of finishing Jeff Mateer's testimony, Hardin, instead of finishing the line of questioning, just said, okay, we're going to get this sorted out and we're going to come back tomorrow morning. And at the pace they were going with the opening examination of Mateer from the the prosecution they weren't going to hit cross examination by six and patrick six o'clock was kind of the line patrick said earlier although

he said it could go longer if if need be but they were moving at glacial pace um it was clear everyone was pretty rusty on this um nobody you know it's been a long, long time since anything like this has happened. And none of these people have participated in something like this before. So. Well, and we say no, they haven't. They have not participated in this particular type of proceeding. These lawyers have oodles of trial experience. Yes, that's a perfect way of putting it.

And you can tell they're standing there, they're saying, you know, tell the jury or the court, blah, blah, blah. And I'm looking around me going, this is the Senate. What are we talking about here? Because it's weird to see trial lawyers function the way trial lawyers do in the legislative chamber. Yeah, it's just the whole thing. It was I felt like, you know, they're mixing and matching concepts there. And it was, it was fascinating to, to watch unfold. Well, you alluded to that earlier. This, is it a political trial?

Is it a criminal trial? Both sides are trying to have their cake and eat it too on that. When it benefits them, it's a criminal trial. When it doesn't, it's political trial and vice versa and all this stuff. But there's no real – because of the way impeachment is set up, there's no set procedure like we have in hundreds and thousands of years of precedent in courts on criminal and civil litigation. But overall, this was an abrupt ending. We were expecting to have a lot more here from Jeff Mateer, which is presumably the star witness for the prosecution. He's a former first assistant attorney general. He was the initial whistleblower on these allegations against Attorney General Paxton. And as I mentioned, the questioning of Mateer went very, very slowly. But first, before they got to that,

they handled a bunch of pretrial motions. Matt, there were about two dozen motions to dismiss various aspects of these allegations, most of which were voted on by the senators, a handful of which were decided upon by the lieutenant governor. Give us a review of the string of votes that kicked off this court of impeachment. Well, just like in a regular trial, the defense is allowed to file motions to dismiss the charges, basically arguing that the prosecution's case is too weak to allow it to continue. Or in this case, I know they had a lot of motions for summary judgment, which is essentially the defense saying no issue of material fact exists. And you kind of see some of that in the defense's opening statements whenever they go in

and they made arguments along the lines of, you know, the allegations are completely false. This didn't exist. So basically, they put that in writing and say, none of this is real. There's no proof. Since it's so overwhelming, grant this motion to dismiss these charges. Under that procedure, under the rules, those motions require a vote by the senator jurors. A motion like that requires only a simple majority of the 30 voting senators, so 16, since Senator Angela Paxton, Ken Paxton's wife, has been made to recuse from participating in the vote. So it came up to a vote on each one of these various different motions. And Hayden, you probably recall more detail along the lines of which all the different ones that were being made everywhere from lack of sworn evidence or et cetera, et cetera, but just a battery, like you said, like two dozen roughly of these motions. So we saw a very consistent group on each one of the votes.

And I guess to long story short, every motion failed to pass. We saw a very consistent group of Republican senators voting to dismiss the charge every time. And that core group included Senators Tan Parker, Brandon Creighton, Paul Bettencourt, Lois Kulkors, Donna Campbell, and Bob Hall. All Republicans. All Republicans. Now, it wasn't like every time, you know, you were having 22 to 8 or something like that, like it varied. And so you had some Republican senators who voted largely to reject the motion to dismiss, but on some of them voted to accept. And those senators included Kevin Sparks, Charles Schwartner, Charles Perry. There may have been one other in there, but I'm drawing a blank on that.

I think you got it, yeah. It's been a long day. Ultimately, every one of these failed along those lines. I think the most they had was about nine. I think they got 10 on one. 10, 10 on them. There was one vote where they did not reach the two-thirds threshold needed to eventually convict. To eventually convict, yeah. So reading the tea leaves, that's an interesting sign.

Some positivity for the defense. For prosecution. If they're getting consistently the two-thirds threshold, it's a good sign for them. At least at this point. And they only need one charge. They only need one charge, yes. Yeah, exactly. One of the motions dismissed involved the forgiveness doctrine. today that runs through the arguments in quite a bit of detail on that, this idea that voters,

that anything before the last election for Paxton, the 2022 re-election, cannot be, he cannot be impeached for because voters decided to forgive all of it. And that's a statutory provision, right? There is. I quote it in the piece. It's in law. It's in code. Now the question is, does that apply to state officials? Prosecutors brought that up.

Actually, well, I think it was Murr in his opening remarks kind of briefly touched on that and saying, you know, impeachment's a constitutional thing. And there is no forgiveness doctrine under the constitutional procedures that reign supreme. So he kind of attacked that a little bit. On the other side, the defense pointed to a number of instances from local officials who were threatened with removal of office and were not because of the forgiveness doctrine. Now that breakdown, um, the, the precedent when it comes to the state offices, at least the recent ones being OP Korea in, um,

1976. Right. And governor Paul Ferguson, the one I mentioned a hundred years ago or over a hundred years ago, uh, in about, I think it was 19, 16,

17. ago or over 100 years ago uh in about i think it was 19 16 17 both of them were impeached on charges that preceded their last election so both sides pointed to various things but ultimately the senators did not seem persuaded yeah by that and so regardless what that meant is not only was this trial going forward, but the defense's attempt effort to get this done and over with on day one was no longer viable. It's not going to happen anymore. We're going to have this testimony. We're going to have an actual trial. Yes. Now, Matt, just after dismissing all of those motions by vote, we got to the motions that the lieutenant governor decided on, one of which was especially notable. Which one was that?

Correct. So there were a handful of categories of motions under the rules that Patrick ultimately got to decide as the presiding judge. And one of them there's been a lot of attention over, and that is whether or not the prosecution can compel Attorney General Paxton to testify potentially against himself during this thing. You know, point back to some comments that Hayden made, you know, about, you know, is this a political trial, is this a criminal trial, all this sort of stuff, you know. We argue these different standards, you know, whenever they benefit them and all that sort of stuff. And a big one that the defense was wanting to make was to apply essentially Fifth Amendment

standard that you see in criminal trials that prohibits the prosecution from compelling a witness to testify against themselves. A defendant to testify against. A defendant to correct, testify against themselves. Patrick, after some deliberation, finally made his ruling on that and decided after elaborating, he said, you know, there's been a consistent pattern here that we've been adopting criminal trial standards and staying consistent in with those standards is applying this fifth amendment standard to not force somebody to testify against themselves and so he granted that motion and ordered that general paxton cannot be compelled to testify by the House managers. And making that ruling, he cited, among other things, the beyond a reasonable doubt standard to convict Paxton on these that they have established. Obviously, that's a thing in criminal trials. I think it's not the same in civil trials, or at some point there is a lower threshold in various other proceedings. But that's

the standard they're applying here. And so that is one of the reasons in which Paxton decided to grant this motion to prevent Paxton from having to testify. Although another place where all of this judicial terminology breaks down is in a typical criminal trial, the jurors are not deciding facts. Excuse me. They are the fact finder. They are not deciding questions of law. I guess jury nullification is a debate that is out there. But typically speaking, the judge says, I'm the one who decides what the law says. You're the one that decides what the facts are in this case. But really, if we're being honest, the senators are also deciding what is the law here because they're the ones that are choosing whether the conduct of which Paxton is accused constitutes an impeachable offense. So they're not just here to decide were they tile or granite countertops.

They're also here to decide if Nate Paul did these renovations on Paxton's home, was that in fact a bribe? They're deciding questions of, and that is probably not the best, um, example, but the beyond or reasonable doubt example that Patrick cited this morning when he was deciding this motion, again, it, everything is so different because it's a legislative proceeding, borrowing all of these criminal justice concepts from the judicial system. I wonder, and you'll have to forgive my ignorance on this part, but is there nothing in there that might provide for Patrick giving instructions to the jurors? Like if you think that Paxton did this, you must find this sort of thing?

I think the only thing in the rules, well, I won't say the only thing in the rules relevant to this, but specifically to your question, if the rules have anything that would resemble jury instructions, the question that will be submitted to senators is whether or not the articles of impeachment will be sustained. I don't think it lays out any, and that's a lot of latitude and decision. It is a lot of latitude and there might, and I'm pulling them up now because I want to be able to answer your question

without, uh, you know, just, uh, saving it for another day. But I think to the extent that the Senate is to be instructed, again, like so many other issues in this proceeding, in this trial, it's left up to Dan Patrick. It's fascinating to see how they are going to cobble the procedures along. You know, and just like tonight, you saw them have to kind of call it a day on the question

of this material being submitted into evidence and whether or not, you know, the defense can object to things that may be protected under attorney-client privilege, et cetera, et cetera. That's something that Patrick's going to have to iron out tonight and figure out tomorrow. Yeah, let's discuss that a bit. Matt, can you explain what it was that Paxton's defense team was arguing in this situation? So during the pretrial procedures, the defense apparently sent over a document file to the prosecution, the managers, and essentially said, these are documents that we may submit into evidence.

We may or may not. But if we do, are you going to object to any of them? And the prosecution responded and said, no, if you submit these, we're not going to object to them. But at that point, the prosecution now had possession of all of these documents. So Attorney Rusty Hardin, for the prosecution prosecution during his examination of Jeff Mateer brought up an email that was an internal OAG email communication. And at the bottom of it, it had an attorney-client privilege confidentiality statement on the thing. And the defense raised an objection and said, you know, once again, this document here has this attorney-client privilege thing, and until you really lay down the law on how this is going to work, you know, we have a problem here. And Hardin kind of said, you're objecting to your own evidence

and so there was a lot of confusion as to what was going on at the time and I think it was Cogdell who said well I emailed that to you but I didn't say I was actually going to use it and Harden they marked it for identification purposes they marked a bunch of things they weren't necessarily going to introduce. And Hardin kind of fired back

while you're objecting to me using something that you might plan to introduce into evidence. And so it posed quite a dilemma, I guess,

for Patrick. And after they deliberated on for a period of time, I guess they kind of decided to call it a day early and figure out – because there's multiple questions here. There's the motion he still hadn't really ruled on, on how are we going to treat attorney-client privileged information out of the attorney general's office. But then now there's this new question of, okay, well, the defense has submitted these documents to the prosecution for review and asked them, are you going to object to any of these? And they said, no. But now there's the question is, is it fair game for the prosecution now to thumb through these documents and use them against them? Likely there are a lot of potential exhibits that fit that bill, and so they realized they needed to hash this out in advance.

That way they don't waste 15 minutes again arguing from the two desks in the chamber over how to handle this kind of thing. So that is probably the first thing they will decide or announce once they reconvene in the morning. You know, after I want to get to what we heard of testimony from the first witness, but quickly I'll review what happened after that. We had opening statements when they convened after lunch. General Paxton was actually absent from the chamber. He was there initially when they gaveled in at nine. Then he was not there after lunch. There's a back and forth about that,

questions about whether, you know, he can actually face his accusers if he's in there or not. But eventually, the lieutenant governor ruled that the rules only said he had to be there Monday, Evelyn, and I. Had to appear. Had to appear. But didn't specify that he had to be there all day long. Right. And that he eventually allowed that, officially allowed that.

Sure. And so that happened then we got into opening statements uh representative andrew murr chairman of the house general investigating committee and chair of the board of managers gave what i recall a pretty similar statement to when he laid out the articles of impeachment in the house back in may he touched on a lot of the same themes but it was pretty succinct and i think it was 17 minutes they had an hour contrast that with the defense that took 59 minutes so they took a lot longer which they had the right to do absolutely yeah they had an hour to to do that. But it was interesting. I think it's pretty clear that the House wanted that time to either question witnesses or use for their closing.

And so they – Representative Murr was more succinct in his statement, whereas the defense took a lot more of their time. I perceived it as kind of this way. Murr made some very bold, big allegations in his opening remarks. One that really sticks in my head is that Ken Paxton gave the keys of the attorney general's office to Nate Paul. I believe he said exactly that on impeachment day back in May. Yeah. And if you recall, whenever the two attorneys for the defense got up there, you know, they really started attacking the credibility of the evidence being offered by the prosecution. You know, no sworn witnesses, you know, kind of attacking directly some of these benefits the prosecution alleges that Nate Paul got, saying, what did Nate Paul get? in his favor that I can't recall exactly what they called it, like an advisory. It wasn't an opinion, but like a—

Guidance. A guidance. But it had no effect of law like an attorney general opinion does, becoming the opinion of law on behalf of the state. But even that is just an opinion on law. It's not, you know, it's not binding. Yeah. Neither are.

And I haven't, and, you know, it's going to be really interesting whenever we get to that point, you know, where they're actually putting that into evidence and we can look at these documents and see, you know. But once again, you know, the defense went out and said, and said, speaking to the jurors, you're going to see their claims essentially fall apart, that you're going to see none of these things are actually true. They're being mischaracterized. It just doesn't exist. So very strong comments from both sides on this thing. Yes, he did it.

Yes, it's damning in nature and overwhelming. The other side saying all of this is completely bogus. And we've got the goods to back it up essentially. And there were a lot of clippable quotes, especially from the defense side that we'll see and we have seen going out on social media. Hayden, I want to come to you for just a brief review of Mateer's testimony, the little bit that we did here. Obviously, it covered only the very beginning of the issues they want to touch on with him. What did you make of the initial testimony from Jeff Mateer. Harden sought to establish Mateer's bona fides as a conservative who sincerely believed in Paxton's efforts to sue Biden or fight the good fight for

conservative values or however you want to characterize it. Mateer said that he had been involved in Republican politics since he was in college. He talked about being an evangelical Christian and that he goes to a Baptist congregation. He discussed how they met through, I believe, Kelly Shackelford, and that he had all this work that he does with First Liberty and conservative organizations. In fact, Harden asked him point blank, are you a rhino? I think the big point there is clear. He's trying to rebut this idea that Paxton's team is putting out there that these were disgruntled employees and they were disagreeing with the operational decisions

by Paxton in the office, and that's why they were trying to mount. The word coup was used today by Dan Cogdell or Tony Busby. I can't remember which one. I do remember it being raised. I don't remember either. One of his attorneys said that these former employees were trying to stage some kind of coup in the attorney general's office, and Hardin's questioning seemed to be angled toward dispensing Ken Paxton and Mateer indicated that before

June of 2020, he didn't know much at all about Paxton. In fact, I think he said about Paul, I'm sorry about Paul. And I think he said May or June of 2020 was the first time he had heard his name and he wasn't sure exactly the nature of the relationship but they he knew that there was some kind of a friendship or positive relationship there and i don't want to pick apart everything that was said but then they went into did matier advise paxton to stop engaging with the Middie Foundation litigation because... And this is an ongoing lawsuit between Paul, the real estate developer, and the Middie Foundation over properties, correct?

Right. Well, I mean, technically it's with his companies, but yes, Paul. And the Middie Foundation litigation is the focus of this because Paxton is accused of meddling in this lawsuit when the OAG almost never does that. In fact, I think it has been said that the OAG or the attorney general himself never goes into court and argues cases himself. He's more of an administrator over there. It's his alleged involvement in his personal capacity that Mateer was talking about a lot. And Mateer said that he thought it was bizarre that Paxton would go in and argue a case in district court.

Now, I'm not saying that Mateer is correct about that. Obviously, just because Mateer disagrees with something Paxton was doing doesn't mean Paxton was doing anything wrong. But in Mateer's opinion, it was strange for Paxton to be so interested in this and for him to show interest in going into a Travis County district courtroom instead of doing all of the things that an attorney general ought to be working on. And at one point, the defense team objected to Harden asking Mateer if he had advised Paxton against that because they contended that was attorney-client privilege. That objection was disputed, obviously, by the board of managers. And as I sit here, I can't remember if it was

sustained or overruled or if Patrick deferred it. I can't remember off the board of managers. And as I sit here, I can't remember if it was sustained or overruled or Patrick deferred it. I can't remember off the top of my head. Forgive me. I have a lot of information swimming out of my brain. It's been a long day. But yeah, those are the bullet points of Mateer's testimony. And I think we've just seen a little bit of a preview of what's coming. And that will be when he will probably get into Harden.

If I had to speculate, he'll probably cover Mateer's decision-making up to when he resigned. I can't remember if he was one of the ones who resigned or was fired. He did resign. I think he resigned, yeah. He'll probably get into his decision-making there. He'll probably discuss his efforts to prevent the alleged misconduct by Paxton. And he'll probably just talk a lot about

what it's like to be Jeff Mateer in this situation, to work for someone that you sincerely believed in. And then for whatever reason, Mateer at some point changed his mind about how he felt about Ken Paxton. And whatever Ken Paxton's actions were that Mateer perceived as wrong, that's something that Hardin will want the senators to see and understand so that they can put themselves in Mateer's shoes of the ethical dilemmas that he believed he was facing and why he ultimately brought his suspicions to the federal government. And when they pick up tomorrow morning,

he will take the stand again for the rest of the examination from the prosecution. And then we'll see cross-examination from the defense attorneys. That will be very interesting to see how that goes. Materia is, if not the top witness, most important witness in this trial, one of them. And his testimony, if there are minds to be swayed in the jury, is going to go a long way to doing that one way or the other. So we'll be back. And the defense, I'm sorry to cut you off, but the defense previewed a little bit of what their attitude toward these former employees are going to be today. Cogdell was pretty bold and he said, if this isn't a direct quote, I'm paraphrasing. Um, but this is, if this isn't a direct quote,

it's pretty close to what he said. He said, who exactly do these people think they are honest to God? And when he said that, I, my eyes widened because I thought that was a, that's a pretty bold strategy. He's basically saying that these whistle, these so-called whistleblowers, and I heard the term so-called whistleblowers a couple of times today are, they were trying to stage a coup. They didn't like Paxton for reasons that are not anybody else's problem. And if they have an issue with their boss, Busby's argument was, if you have an issue with your boss, you raise that issue. And if there's still an issue after that, you resign or go work somewhere else. And Busby looked at some of the senators and said, if one of your chiefs of staff came to you with an issue and you disagreed with them, and then later they just decided they were going to stop using your name on letterhead,

you would fire them on the spot. And so I'm looking forward to seeing the clash between their view of these former employees and the board of managers view, which the board of managers has, has very much cast these individuals as heroes, as whistleblowers, whistleblowers. They are, they are the true, either the heroes or the victims in the story. And, um, according to the board of managers and the defense team is definitely going to push back on that narrative. Tomorrow, I think we'll see really quickly the arguments on both sides sharpening up, where you see the prosecution making the case these are hero whistleblowers that, you know, caught a corrupt public official in the act and did the right thing, regardless of the consequences,

versus the defense, who are going to argue, you know, that Paxton exercised his constitutional powers, you know, show me where what he did was illegal and not justified, giving all these different examples. We heard a tidbit today where, you know, the Mitty Foundation had been gone after for all kinds of problems by former Attorney General Greg Abbott, now Governor Greg Abbott, and things like that, and that these were just discontent subordinates who went overboard, so to speak, for lack of a better way. So you're going to see really quickly both sides trying to paint that picture. And it'll be fascinating to see where the facts that come out, you know, what do the documents say, what actually happened, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And I strongly think, you know, as we start seeing actual documents and actions and things

like that, that it'll probably start sharpening up pretty quickly who's giving the more accurate tale. Well, like I said, when they reconvene tomorrow, material will be on the stand and that will finish and then we'll go to the next witness and so on and so on for however many weeks this takes. Well, like I said, when they reconvene tomorrow, material will be on the stand and that will finish and then we'll go to the next witness and so on and so on for however many weeks this takes. This podcast will be put out daily. Normally, Mackenzie DeLulo, our senior editor, will be hosting this.

I filled in today. She's feeling sick. But she could be back tomorrow and then we'll be back to the regular stream of things. But regardless, there's going to be a lot said in the Texas Senate over the coming days and a lot of very interesting claims made. We'll see if it has any effect. So thank you for joining. We'll talk to you tomorrow.