The Texan Podcast - Inside the Impeachment: Paxton on Trial — Day 4 (with Jonathan Richie)

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

Read more about the impeachment: https://thetexan.news/paxton_impeachment/Today, attorneys in the impeachment trial wrapped up testimony from Ryan Vassar, a former employee of the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) who, unlike previous staff who testified, was fired from the office and joined the lawsuit under the Texas Whistleblowers Act. The prosecution then called David Maxwell to the stand, a former Texas Ranger who served as the director of criminal law enforcement under Ken Paxton. Some big parts of the day included:Rusty Hardin, attorney for the prosecution, looked to clarify statements Vassar made the day before about not bringing any evidence to the FBI when he reported Paxton with the other employees. Vassar said he meant that he did not bring documents, but that he did bring his “experiences.” Texts from Vassar that joked with another whistleblower that the OAG “might need some activities to keep the kids entertained” after they left the agency were read in front of the jury of senators by the defense. Vassar disagreed with the defense attorneys who alleged he was “trying to shape the media narrative.”Vassar said it wouldn’t be true to assert that he altered the letterhead on an OAG document to exclude Paxton’s name.Maxwell was up next, and testified that he thought Paxton “was going to get himself indicted” if he did not distance himself from Paul. He claimed “Nate Paul was a criminal, and we shouldn’t be associating with Nate Paul.” The former Texas Ranger said that Paul became “very angry” when Maxwell did not act on his complaints, and argued he would have been guilty of federal crimes of obstruction of justice and interfering with an investigation if he did investigate.Just after 4:30 p.m., the Senate adjourned until Monday at 9:00 a.m.

Howdy, folks. This is Mackenzie DeLullo, Senior Editor at The Texan. In this episode of Inside the Impeachment, Paxton on Trial, we're joined by Jonathan Ritchie, Senior Reporter at the Dallas Express, who has been in Austin covering the trial this week. For a quick recap, today, attorneys in the impeachment trial wrapped up testimony from Ryan Vassar, a former employee of the Office of the Attorney General, who, unlike previous staff who testified, was fired from the office and joined the lawsuit under the Texas Whistleblowers Act. The prosecution then called David Maxwell to the stand, a former Texas Ranger who served as the Director of Criminal Law Enforcement under Ken Paxton. Here are some of the main highlights. Rusty Hardin, attorney for the prosecution,

looked to clarify statements Vassar made the day before about not bringing any evidence to the FBI when he reported Paxton with the other employees. Vassar said he meant that he did not bring any documents, but that he did bring his experiences. Text from Vassar that joked with another whistleblower that the OAG might need some activities to keep the kids entertained that he did bring his experiences. Texts from Vassar that joked with another whistleblower that the OAG might need some activities to keep the kids entertained after they left the agency

were read in front of the jury of senators by the defense. Vassar disagreed with the defense attorneys who alleged he was trying to shape the media narrative. He said it wouldn't be true to assert that he altered the letterhead on an OAG document to exclude Paxton's name. Maxwell was up next and testified that he thought Paxton was going to get himself indicted if he did not distance himself from Paul. He claimed,

Nate Paul was a criminal and we shouldn't be associating with Nate Paul. The former Texas Ranger said that Paul became very angry when Maxwell did not act on his complaints and argued he would have been guilty of federal crimes of obstruction of justice and interfering with an investigation if he did investigate. Just after 4 30 p.m the senate adjourned until Monday at 9 a.m. Enjoy this episode. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie DeLulo here, and we are on day four, the last day of the first week of the impeachment trial of suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate. The proceedings just wrapped up

for the day and deliberations are over for the weekend. I'm joined by gentlemen from our team, Brad Johnson and Hayden Sparks. Hayden, you've made your way back from the Senate chamber to join us. So welcome back. I have, but I'm even more excited about our guest today. I was going to say our special guest today is Jonathan Ritchie, senior reporter with the Dallas Express. Jonathan, we're so glad to have you. Well, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Have you kept Hayden in line in the chamber this week? Oh, I wouldn't characterize it as that. Has he kept you in line in the Senate chamber? We haven't gotten in trouble. Let's just leave it at that. It is a miracle that Jonathan and I have not been kicked out of the Capitol multiple times this week. I just get lost sometimes.

I don't know. Just get lost sometimes. There's a picture I was shown from the gallery point of view of a certain counselor without his shoes on on the Senate floor that I have seen from one of these two gentlemen. Yes. So they're not behaving entirely, but yes. Yeah, we're not the rowdiest in the chamber. We're making superfluous observations that have nothing to do with the trial, but are funny nonetheless. That keeps you sane in there, though.

It does. Yeah, absolutely. So, Jonathan, you've been following the trial here in Austin all week, right? Yes, ma'am. So talk to us a little bit about a piece you wrote for The Federalist, outlining some of your observations from being there. Summarize that for us. And if you have any other observations from this week to add, go ahead and chime in with those. Yeah, absolutely. So, I ran a piece in The Federalist kind of talking about how really Paxton has a pretty clear and I think pretty attainable path to beating the impeachment charges. Because if we remember going back to

Monday in the morning, I mean, Tuesday, sorry, in the morning, while they're going through the pretrial matters, it had all of the various motions to dismiss either all the articles, some of the articles, a few, this one and that one. And none of them passed, none of them reached the base majority that they needed to pass. But the vote totals were interesting because Paxton never received less than six votes. And in many of them, he received eight. And it actually got all the way up to 10 in one instance. And while to dismiss an article, it needed a base majority, for a article of impeachment, for him to actually be convicted on that, it needs two thirds. And even though there's 31 senators, only 30 are eligible jurors with Senator Paxton being, you know, recused from voting but still

present on the floor, which means in order to convict Paxton on any of these articles of impeachment, there needs to be 20 votes, 21 votes. And that means that Paxton only needs 10 people to vote to acquit him on these articles. And we have, you know, as we saw in the pretrial, six of them seem to be pretty in the pocket already. Two of them are pretty likely, potentially, which means really Paxton and his legal team only have to convince, assuming they don't lose any, of course, two to four people in that room. And that's something that I think now four days into the trial, they might have an honest shot at doing. So I think a lot of people took the pretrial failures as this is not a good look for Paxton. But, you know, it doesn't take that many votes to acquit him.

And I think it's probably attainable. Absolutely so other observations from week one you're sitting in the chamber you're watching what's going down what's your takeaway so far? You know my takeaway is that the defense team is going in swinging I mean really between Busby and Cogdaleell and really all the attorneys. I mean, it's just been a masterclass in trial litigation. It's been fascinating to watch. And there are so many layers of Texas history going on here. I mean, obviously, this is the first time in over 100 years that a statewide elected official has been sitting before a court of impeachment or maybe not sitting in front of a court of impeachment. But this is a historic moment. And they brought in equally historic figures for the trial between Busby and Cogsdale and Hardin and DeGaran. So it's just been fascinating to watch all around.

We'll talk about some of those connections a little bit later. But let's go ahead and jump to Hayden. Now that the first week is over, and you've had literally dozens of hours that you've sat in the Senate chamber, I mean, put it there, dozens of hours that you've sat in the Senate chamber. I mean, put it there, dozens of hours. At the end of this, you're going to have hundreds of hours that you've sat in the Senate chamber. Walk through what you've observed, maybe one or two big takeaways that you've had this week. Jonathan just called it a master class in trial litigation. And I think that's a really good descriptor because you have dozens, if not

hundreds of years of legal experience in that room. Well, it would be hundreds of years if you count all the attorneys involved. And the presiding officer over this trial is not even an attorney. So this is such a unique event because this is happening in a legislative chamber, and it is intended to resemble a judicial proceeding. So nothing about this is conventional. And Dan Patrick is relying a lot on Lena Myers, who is a former Dallas area appellate justice, to inform his decisions on the objections that are raised by the parties in this case. Something I've noticed throughout this week is the different styles and strategies of all the attorneys. Rusty Hardin handled almost all of the witnesses so far. Dick DeGaran handled David Maxwell, the former sergeant in the Texas Rangers who was the director of law enforcement at the Office of the Attorney

General before Paxton made the decision to fire him. DeGaran's direct examination of Maxwell was really the first time he made an appearance in this trial, other than brief objections or brief comments from his side of the room. But the defense team has really assigned a different lawyer for each witness. And each of those attorneys have approached those witnesses with different styles. The cross-examination of Ryan Vassar, one of the former employees who resigned by, I'm sorry, Vassar was fired. He did not resign. The cross-examination of Vassar by Mitch Little was very aggressive and very fiery. He asked questions one after the other. It got very heated at times, but the cross-examination by Dan Cogdell of David

Maxwell earlier today began very courtly and very polite. He was very deferential. He talked up Maxwell's bona fides as an investigator and talked about the fact that Maxwell is in the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame. He reassured him, I will never question your professionalism. I will never question whether you're a man of integrity. But then as the cross X progressed, it did get more heated as they delved into Cogdell's disagreements with Maxwell. But it did begin so much differently than other witnesses in this case. So that has really been interesting to watch, the litigation strategy here. And like Jonathan said, there are so many high-profile attorneys in the room who have so much experience litigating these high-stakes cases.

And all of their careers have culminated in this precedent-setting historic trial that I don't think anyone had a script for before this week. And we haven't even gotten into the defense's case yet. We haven't even finished the board of managers case yet. And Paxton hasn't even been in the room for any of it. He pleaded guilty, stayed till lunch that first day, and he took off after that. But Senator Angela Paxton, his wife, has been sitting attentively taking notes, even though she probably has firsthand knowledge of a lot of this. But I've said enough. I think there's so much more we could talk about, but those are just my initial thoughts on how the trial's going.

No, that's so good. And you're hit on a few points I want to delve into more. So let's go ahead and jump into the chronological order of the day. We'll do our best to kind of stick to what happened morning and then move on through the evening. Let's talk about Mitch Little's cross-examination of Vassar. Hayden, we'll go ahead and just start with you since you already talked about it a little bit. Why don't you summarize what happened when the day started? When Vassar took the stand, he began to describe his beginnings. He started out working in finance and decided he wanted to become a lawyer. So he went to law school thereafter, which plenty of people do. They start a career and then decide they want to be a lawyer. Fast forward to when he was at the OAG.

He handled litigation under Ryan Bangert. Ryan Bangert was the witness that immediately preceded him, and he reported to Bangert. So a lot of his testimony complemented what Bangert provided to the Senate Court of Impeachment. Vassar was one of the first witnesses to break down crying on the stand when he was asked how he felt when the OAG referred to him and the other former employees who complained to the FBI as, quote, rogue employees, end quote. He became emotional and said it was contrary to everything that he had done at the OAG

for eight years. He described the circumstances of departing the office and how his family was jeopardized, in his view, by the OAG's actions to essentially strip him of his responsibilities and fire him. Vassar was one of the employees who joined the Texas Whistleblowers Act lawsuit, unlike Jeff Mateer and Ryan Banger, the witnesses before him. After he described his perception of events and said that he believed that Ken Paxton had committed criminal wrongdoing, there was a heated cross-examination by Mitch Little, as has been mentioned moments ago, and he made a comment that really came back to bite him during latter portions of his testimony, because

he said when they went to the FBI, they had a good faith belief, which has been the mantra of the former employees. But he made the comment that they had no evidence when they went to the FBI. And he tried to clarify that in latter parts of his testimony, especially during the redirect by Mr. Hardin, that he meant that they had no documents to back up what they were saying, because any documents that they had would have been property of the OAG, so they couldn't take that information and go to federal investigators. Instead, they had their personal experiences and what they witnessed firsthand. But the defense really emphasized that point that when Vassar went to the OAG,

excuse me, went to the FBI to complain about Paxton and his actions concerning Nate Paul, they did not have any physical documentation or evidence to back this up. And another point that was really hammered by Mr. Little was he did not call Mr. Paxton to get his side of things before he went to federal investigators with his concerns. And that really, from my perspective, was the highlight of his testimony because he went back and tried to clarify, correct, or otherwise add to that statement, however you'd like to characterize it. And it's not good for a witness when he has to go back and clarify that comment. But I think that was also counterbalanced by his statement that he felt like the accusation that he was a rogue employee was contrary to the years and years that he had served

at the OAG and the jeopardy that he believed his family was in when he left and had to live on savings for several months because he did not have a job for, Jonathan, you can correct me, I think it was six months. Yeah, he said six months. Although apparently he might have refused a job offer too. He might have had other job offers on the table, but from his perspective, he was without a job for six months and lived off of savings because that was how he was providing for his family during that time. And that was powerful testimony on Vassar's part. So obviously, it's not for me to say who's winning the trial or who was which side Vassar's testimony benefited more. But there were definitely strong moments and persuasive moments for each side

during Vassar's testimony. I want to home in real fast on that point you made about Vassar clarifying a statement he said yesterday. I believe it was yesterday when he said that there was no evidence, quote unquote, that there was no evidence at all that he brought to the FBI and clarified later that it was his experience that he brought to the FBI.

Brad, do you think that's, we're going to come to you. Welcome, Brad. Oh, thanks for having me on the podcast. You're so welcome. You're so welcome. Do you think that's enough for the jury? Are the senators sitting there thinking, okay, that makes sense. People on social media, there's obviously folks on both sides who run with narratives that fit their perspective. We're seeing that over and over again. And we've seen it happen in this instance specifically because it's a very fiery piece of the trial we've seen so far. Was his clarification enough? I mean, if you think about it, I don't have statistics, but I assume assume that anyone that not everyone who goes to

law enforcement with an allegation has hard evidence to back it up um his assertion that vassar's assertion that that was up to the investigators to follow through on, I think, probably assuage any concerns among the senators after this, after the soundbite that we saw on Twitter was essentially that, that they were witnesses to alleged crimes. Um, and the evidence was in their head basically. Um, now the soundbites still occurred and it was undoubtedly a big win for the defense, getting him to concede that,

uh, a big win for the defense getting him to concede that especially in short order in just a few words because it took a couple follow-up questions for him to finally get to the point where he said it wasn't our role to collect evidence it without that's the FBI's job well and then you had a whole 12 hours before he was redirected so you're sitting there with that being the final piece of information that's out there right right and overall I wonder what issue we're going to end on, because that is going to be the last thing that's in senators' minds when they make this decision. So both sides are, I'm sure, strategizing on what it is, what witness they're going to end on, which one, which issues they're going to raise in that conclusion. Those closing arguments.

Right. And obviously they'll have closing arguments. But I think the witness testimony is more powerful than that. I mean, other than dumber than a bucket of hair, what do we remember from the opening statements? Really nothing. It's this witness testimony that's carrying each day. And who knows how long it's going to take but um i think dan patrick said today that by the end of today they'll be over halfway done from the trial with the trial so how's it going to end that that may if there are lines to sway

that may do it yeah absolutely jonathan what do you have to add to the vassar part of today yeah i mean it was not a good thing to say on the stand. And the thing that really stood out to me was that the House side has got, gosh, maybe a dozen, 15 attorneys. And nobody was stepping in to try to, you know, object to Counselor Little's questioning or like try to defend their witness at all on the stand. I mean, they knew he was saying things that could be either misinterpreted or maybe were true, but they didn't want it to, I,

you know, we don't know. Obviously, which has been objecting a lot. It's yeah. It's a strategy. Yeah. It's a strategy.

And, and you know, they just kind of let it play out and let the senators sleep on. We had no evidence when we went to the FBI. And I think if you are having to come back and explain, try to explain things away or, you know, kind of roll things back, it's never going to stick as much as the original punch. So, you know, maybe they help some people, but I think the idea of like, we have eight of the highest ranking attorneys in all of Texas going to the FBI to, you know, complain about the elected AG.

And they didn't think to bring any sort of supporting documentation. And they may not need to have, but it still is like, oh, interesting. And then Little followed that up of, did you ever go out and collect any evidence? And he still said no. Yep. And, you know, the FBI, to our knowledge, is not going to be on the stand during this trial to share what evidence, if any, they didn't collect per Vassar's hope. And, you know, the point that the defense has made is we're now three years after you guys went to the FBI and we haven't seen or heard hide in our hair about it. Maybe they're doing stuff behind the scenes, but they're sure dragging their feet.

And if they had something, I don't know if they would be. So it's all about throwing in that doubt, which is all I need to your point about the votes. So they got a sway. Just just get enough doubt. Yeah. All you have to do to give these guys the ability to vote to acquit is give them a leg to stand on. And it seems like the defense is, you know, at least doing everything they can to do that. Yeah.

And I will say the senators are an entire, which I keep saying, but the senators are an entirely different audience from the public. These are people who are inside the Capitol, who've heard these rumors for three years, who've talked about this ad nauseum who work with the attorney general's wife this is not for information or material that they are unfamiliar with right so they i'm so curious what goes through their minds and maybe how prepared each person is plays into this as well but what they actually if they're sitting there gasping at the fact that they didn't bring a documentation or if they're sitting there like yeah yeah, okay, like we knew that, like what's next, right? And not, I wonder how much those theatrics, because this is theatrical. This is very like, this is a trial. We have trial lawyers with years of experience who know exactly what they're doing. And there are theatrics at play. So I

wonder how much that's actually convincing senators who have a lot of skin in the game and a lot of information that they've had access to for many years and just proximity to the people involved as well. Let's move on to Maxwell. I think Maxwell obviously was the last witness of the day. Former director. What was his title? His title was director of law enforcement of criminal law enforcement under the OAG's office. Quite a storied history this guy has. And Hayden, why don't you kind of walk us through a little bit of that first interaction that we saw him have with the prosecution?

I touched on this earlier. Maxwell is in his 70s. He mentioned in his testimony that he was 71 when he left the OAG after he was fired. And he has decades of experience in law enforcement. He was a sergeant in the Texas Rangers. As Dan Cogdell, one of the defense attorneys, pointed out on the stand, he is in the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame. He really has a lot of credibility on whether or not something is a proper investigation

or a proper complaint against law enforcement. The testimony of Maxwell focused a lot more than the other witnesses on the conspiracy allegation of Nate Paul that federal agents, state law enforcement, and even a federal judge were working together to undermine Nate Paul by doctoring search warrants in the midst of a search of his properties. This was the nature of the complaints Paul brought to the OAG with his attorney, Michael Wynn, Maxwell was ardent that there was nothing that Paul and Wynn brought to him that he thought constituted a viable complaint. He said, these were his words, the complaints were, quote, absolutely ludicrous, end quote. He said they were, quote, without merit, end quote. And later in his testimony, he looked at Dan Cogdell and said there was no investigation to be done. He had no reason

to pursue this investigation from Maxwell's perspective. Maxwell's testimony was really cut and dry. It was shorter than some of the other testimony we've heard. There wasn't a lot of the back and forth over the particulars of how Public Information Act requests work and how open records requests work and FOIA documents that are filed. A lot of Maxwell's testimony was focused on his interactions with Nate Paul and his attorney about these complaints against the FBI and those that were working with the FBI. Earlier witnesses talked about the special counsel hired by the OAG to conduct an investigation of Nate Paul's companies, but Maxwell really focused on the perspective of Paul and said that Paul was more or less irate when the OAG would not act on his complaints as expeditiously as he wished, Maxwell contended he would have been guilty of the federal crimes of

obstruction of justice and interfering with an investigation if he had pursued the complaints that Paul and his attorney outlined when they met with the OAG to air their grievances. I don't want to filibuster. I feel like I have so much information and testimony in my head I could talk all day, but those were the bullet points of Maxwell's testimony. And on cross-examination, Cogdell sought to establish Maxwell labeled Paul a criminal from the beginning, which he did. He said out loud, I thought Nate Paul was a criminal and we should not be associating with him. He said that he warned Ken Paxton, if you keep screwing around with this guy, you're going to get yourself indicted. And that was his attitude toward Paul from the beginning.

Cogdell really put a lot of emphasis on that point. Before he had even met Nate Paul, he thought he was a criminal, that they should have nothing to do with it before even hearing any of his allegations of criminal misconduct by DPS and FBI. And one of the big points that Cogdell brought out on cross was that, you know, obviously Mr. Maxwell, Ranger Maxwell, they were calling him, had been in the Texas Rangers, had been in DPS for many years. And Cogdell, you know, made the remark to obviously have somebody like Maxwell then open an investigation into, or even review opening an investigation into DPS would be like

Mickey Mantle being asked to investigate the Yankees. You're having a guy that has spent decades of his life very proudly. And, you know, like you said, he's either in the Hall of Fame or about to be coming back and being like, hey, that institution that you were very proud to be in is totally rotten and corrupt now, and I need you to investigate it. Obviously, a guy like that might not be totally inclined to adopt that theory. It might even consider it a conspiracy theory, perhaps, as he said on the stand. So that was some of the things that Cogdell brought out. And like you mentioned earlier, Cogdell really started it kind of with velvet hands. He didn't go after Maxwell super hot off the bat. It kind of escalated towards the end. But an interesting thing to note is de Guerin directed Maxwell, Cogdale crossed

Maxwell, and the three of them were all in Waco or had a connection to the Waco siege with the Branch Davidians. Because Maxwell investigated that. He was, I think, a Ranger at the time. He might've still been just in like beneath a Ranger. I can't quite remember the timeline on it, but he was in DPS at the time. DeGaran was personal counsel to David Koresh, if I remember correctly, and actually rode into the compound with a Ranger escort to meet with Koresh before it all went down. And then one of Cogdell's first breakthrough cases was defending one of the surviving Branch Davidians. And actually, you know, they were the only ones that walked out of the courtroom that day. Some of the other ones had probation and stuff. And that launched Cogdell's career. So here we have

these three men who were all a part of another very historic moment in Texas history meeting again in another unparalleled moment in Texas history. So it was really cool in that respect. That's a real moment. And Cogdell said when asked Maxwell, when was the first time you met Mr. DeGarant? And hearing that whole conversation just unfurl was unbelievable. And Hayden, I know you wrote a piece about the background of the lawyers and who they've represented in the past. And it's fascinating.

So make sure to go read that, the Texan too, folks. I turned to somebody and said, I don't know if we'll ever be in the room with so many people who have all these connections to the Waco siege, which is a fixture in Texas history.

And fascinating that the Paxton impeachment would be the thing to bring them all together. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's brought all of us together, right? Well, and it's this strange, bizarre, really sad reunion that everybody, that they're all getting together under these circumstances. And after Cogdell finished his cross-examination, it began very fondly and courtly. He ended his cross-examination by saying to Maxwell,

I think we're done here. Good luck to you, sir. And he walked off. So it was a mixed bag. When Cogdell, too, was the guy who at the very beginning of the trial in his opening statement said he was the one yelling from the front mic, who do these people think they are, talking about the whistleblowers. Right.

That he was that guy. And then to see him, again, he had history with Maxwell. There's something there. And obviously, Maxwell has a very storied career. So it may not be the best strategy to go out swinging against this 70-something-year-old man up there on the stand who's served his state for decades. But it was very interesting to watch

um cogdale for many hours you know or many minutes kind of weave that fine line of trying to be kind i do want real fast this is something notable that just got tweeted out um congressman chip roy has been pretty quiet since 2020 i believe it was a 2020 when he called on the attorney general to resign yeah once the whistleblower allegations were released he called on paxton to resign and of course yeah go ahead yeah and roy was um matier's predecessor so he was the first assistant attorney general before jeff matier under paxton under paxton um so a former paxton staffer he just tweeted i stand squarely alongside david David Maxwell and those standing with him.

He is a Texas Ranger, law enforcement veteran over four decades, and my friend. His integrity is rock solid against political hot air. Fascinating. Very fascinating. Jonathan, maybe you can help me with this a little bit. Did Cogdell say that Maxwell was in the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame, or did he say that he belongs in the Hall of Fame? So there's a little bit of equivocation on it.

Cogdell did say he was in the Hall of Fame. Maxwell said he was not a full member of the Hall of Fame, but they do have his picture there and stuff. I think it's like there's a waiting period. It's kind of like... Like any sports hall of fame. He's on his way to being in the Hall of Fame. Yeah. Okay, so I like there's a waiting period. It's kind of like any sports hall of fame. He's on his way to being in the hall of fame.

Yeah. Okay, so I may have gotten out of it for a nice case earlier. They had an exhibit on him in the hall of fame, I think, and that was my understanding

from the back and forth. Now he will be soon is what it seems to me. Which, of course, is in Waco. Yes. It's a great museum. Oh my gosh.

That is a bold statement by roy though especially given his connection to this as matier's predecessor yeah and matier's status as the first witness in this case absolutely because roy saying that will certainly upset a lot of people but he clearly has decided that he wants to take a stand on this yeah absolutely um okay are we missing anything from the maxwell um okay i want to know i want to know from y'all who were there jonathan and hayden when uh maxwell made his snarky little comment and he was like maybe do y'all know what i'm talking about yes did people crack up in the burst out laughing it was hard to tell from the live stream you know volume I'm talking about? Yes. Did people crack up in the... Burst out laughing.

It was hard to tell from the live stream. You know how volume is so weird with the live stream. So it was a really interesting exchange because one of the first things that Cogdell brought out was that Maxwell, in his decades-long career in law enforcement, often taught classes and even taught classes on how do you as a law enforcement officer give compelling and good testimony in trial, teaching them the tips and tricks on how to deal with pesky attorneys, you know, trying to get them to mess up on the stand. My father was a police officer. He took similar classes. I think we've talked about it, things of that nature. And it's a very common thing for law enforcement guys who do investigations to have that background. And Cogdell laid that predicate early.

And then early when he asked him the first time, you know, Maxwell did the, what was that? You know, acting like he hadn't heard it. And they all kind of laughed then. And then when Cogdell recircled back around to that Maxwell did the same joke and this time Cogdell kind of dug into it a little more and you know is that one of the things you teach in your class and you know etc and everybody was kind of laughing at it and then he asked are you know, doing that to throw me off? And he goes, maybe. And then Cogdell flipped the switch and dug into him. And is that your purpose for being here today? To throw me off,

not to tell the truth? And of course the atmosphere changed really quickly. People were cracking up when he said maybe, and then Cogdell. Including Cogdell himself. Yeah. For like two seconds. Cogdell was, Cogdell himself. Yeah, for like two seconds. And then it changed. Yeah. I mean, Rusty Hardin threw his head back laughing. Like, that's what it looked like.

It was funny. I cracked up. It was hilarious. It was. And to be the picture, this is a white haired older gentleman who's sitting up there. A massive man. Massive. And he was being ornery.

Yes. It was the deal. And it was the best. And that's where Cogdell, I think, did have a lot of frustration that came forward is because Maxwell got increasingly more ornery throughout the testimony. But anyways, I think also he had the toughest witness to cross. He did. Maxwell is by far the most difficult witness. Because the other witnesses, I mean, Vassar and Bangert were young.

I think Vassar was 39 and Bangert was probably in his mid-40s. So they weren't as young as us, but they were very young. Maxwell is established, retired. He's an institution. He's been around the block. Right. Or like Kyle said, it's not his first rodeo. That's exactly right.

And then Mateer was kind of jumping around during his testimony. Very jumpy. That wasn't very smooth. Banger was smoother than him. But Maxwell, by far, was difficult from the perspective of the defense attorneys trying to poke holes in the prosecution's argument. And another thing is, really, Maxwell was only testifying to one element of the case, while the other ones are trying to weave a cohesive story, right? Maxwell really only was involved in the early stages of this, you know, potential investigation about misconduct, alleged misconduct by the FBI and DPS. So, he had one story to tell. And, you know, he clearly had

that pretty well under wraps and the only thing Cogdell really had was to go back to some of the transcripts of earlier conversations and be like okay well earlier you might have said this or you know he was talking like of the house uh the committee and the house interview yeah committee interview and things of that nature um which I think you know he probably scored a couple points on of just kind of undermining some of the authority that this figure with inherent authority kind of had walking in. So, yeah, it was definitely a tough one for Cogdell. And right before Cogdell did start cross-examining him, sorry, you were still finishing. His last statement or one of his last statements was in firing me at the time.

I was 71 years old and had risen to a top level of law enforcement. In effect, Paxton had fired me and berated me in the news. He ended my career. So very different kind of foot to end on when you have, you know, somebody who's young with a family who has found a new career is doing fine now versus somebody who's, you know, seven at the time was 71 with a very different type of career.

Like these are not, he's not a lawyer either. Sure, he has a lot of examples of or a lot of experience up there doing this exact kind of work, but it's just a very different witness. And to your point about a master class in trial litigation, for us, it's also just a masterclass in like legality. We have incredible lawyers up there as the witnesses themselves for the first couple of days. And so this is the first witness we have who's not a lawyer. This is the first person on the trial,

aside from Dan Patrick, who we've heard from who's not a lawyer. It's kind of crazy. And even though the credibility of these witnesses or Maxwell's credibility is well established, I don't want any of this to be interpreted as us saying that the board of managers doesn't have a lot of work to do. The cross-examination was fierce.

Absolutely. And they did expose a lot of holes in their argument. When Mr. Little asked Mr. Vassar one by one on many of the articles of impeachment, Vassar hemmed and hawed a lot. Mr. Little would ask questions like, read this article of impeachment. That is not true, is it? And Vassar would, I don't know. I didn't write that. There was a lot of hemming and hawing. He didn't give a definitive answer. So there were a lot of moments like that this week that the board of managers will need to address in their closing arguments. Yeah. Well, and even seeing Maxwell, some of his orneriness was in, you know, to dodge those questions that were very obvious, yes or no questions.

Some weren't, but some were very easy answers and he was finding ways to dodge those and that says a lot to a jury one thing i find interesting is um the house has obviously led with the whistleblowers and i don't know how many more they will call the stand probably at least one or two more um they have to the prosecution will have to prove not only that the circumstances were there, that, you know, what these whistleblowers allege occurred, but also it's fine. Some semblance of motive, right? Um, those, at least in terms of the bribery articles will come from the alleged mistress, Paul himself, who have not been called yet probably signaling that that's being kept in the back pocket for later but it's interesting that they're trying to establish the foundation from these witness these whistleblowers point of view of the circumstances and then rather than start out with establishing the motive and who knows if they'll get there but time is rapidly waning um but i assume that in order to make their case they have to do that yeah you gotta

imagine that testifying at this impeachment trial is the last thing on a list of things that nate paul wants to do right now he's facing multiple life sentences on invest on mortgage fraud charges testifying at this trial would be only at his peril i don't i can't think of anything he's like a priority the house board of managers can't offer him anything they the prosecution is a federal prosecution so they can they can ask real nice they can do a little dance. There's nothing that they can offer Paul that will help him in this situation. So I'm just thinking about Paul wringing his hands over the possibility of testifying in this trial. I don't know if they can force him to or not. They could hold him in contempt of the Texas State Senate, but that dwarfs in comparison to what? $500 a day or what?

Right. $500 a day versus like 3,000 years in prison or whatever he's facing. I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean. 3,000 years in prison. Okay. Well, we can talk about this day forever. It was a quite an interesting day. Let's talk about next week, the Senate adjourned until 9am Monday. What can we expect going through next week? I do know that Dan Patrick, what did he say? We're halfway through the trial as of the finish of today. He said if they hit six o'clock today,

which they didn't, they would be more than halfway done with the allotted time. They're about an hour and a half out from six o'clock. Now the caveat is he can extend it as much as he wants. Yeah.

But so far he's shown no indication that he is willing to extend those time limits um so for all intents and purposes we are about halfway through the trial um what can we expect next week we'll start will we start with maxwell are we completely done with maxwell i don't think they were finished i think they were oh did they i think cogdale you might he said it off the mic but he said okay i basically see the effect of I don't think we'll need to recall him. Okay. And they were, I won't say that.

Patrick called them to the dais, and I thought they were getting ready to call their next witness because it was only, what, 4.30? And Patrick had called a 10-minute break, but after he came up to the dais, he moments later said, never mind, the attorneys have said we can just go home for the day, much to the delight of many people. Everybody. Everybody in the room.

Everyone was pleased by that news. You didn't want to go for another eight hours? Another eight hours? As in until, what, 2 a.m. tomorrow? Yeah, we're all having such fun. Jonathan, we've already established in the stairwell of the Capitol that I cannot do math in my head. Another eight hours as in until what? 2 a.m. tomorrow. We're all having such fun. Jonathan, we've already established in the stairwell of the Capitol that I cannot do math in my head. So this is already perilous territory here.

Perilous territory. Oh, my gosh. Okay. So we just look forward to reconvening 9 a.m. next week. Oh, real fast. I did want y'all to tell us about the Boris Miles of it all today that happened. This was notable. What happened there? You saw it it i didn't see it so basically from what we saw in the gallery is senator miles got up

walked up to uh the bench walked up to lieutenant governor patrick uh from the house side of things and just walked up i guess said i, I need to talk to you, whispered something in his ear and then walked out the back door of the Senate chambers with a staffer behind them. And the Lieutenant Governor said, we're going to stand at ease for 30 minutes. And then 30 some odd minutes later, we came back. Senator Miles came back in and we kept going with the day. And he shook hands with Patrick when he came back in. It was interesting. He came back around, walked up to the dais.

They had a brief handshake. Miles walked back over to his desk and they picked up where they left off. It wasn't a huge deal, but it was definitely longer. As most Senate breaks go, it was definitely longer than the time that Patrick said. He called it a 30-minute break, but it ended up being something like 45 minutes. Brad, do you have any scuttlebutt? From what I understand from a source in the Capitol,

that it was a medical situation, not an emergency situation. Some medicine he needed to take or something like that. But yeah, not a life-threatening thing, but something that needed to be taken care of. I'm glad. Yeah. Miles tweeted out something like, thanks for working with me.

We're good. Okay. Well, Jonathan, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. And for sticking around late on a Friday night and joining the hooligans in this office. It's been a pleasure. You're coming back down for any part of the senate

oh yeah for the trial oh yeah okay be back down next week he said he this morning we were in the

cafeteria and he said that he was going home this weekend and I was very upset until he said that he was coming back

next weekend I was like come on man you're gonna leave me all by myself I'm gonna have to branch out and make new friends in the press box or something because I can't hang out with you next week let it be known jonathan

richie has never left party early i love it well folks we so appreciate you tuning in we will be back monday with another episode and we'll catch you then thank you so much for tuning in to inside the impeachment paxton on Trial. For access to all of our team's coverage on this historic proceeding, visit thetexan.news and subscribe today.