The Texan Podcast - Inside the Impeachment: Paxton on Trial — Final Recap

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

Read more about the impeachment: https://thetexan.news/paxton_impeachment/Welcome back to our final episode of Inside the Impeachment: Paxton on Trial.Today, we debrief it all. We discuss what’s happened in Texas politics since Attorney General Ken Paxton was acquitted on all 16 articles of impeachment, what the biggest moments of the trial were, what the political ramifications will be going forward, and our top takeaways from the biggest two weeks in recent Texas political history. Enjoy this episode. 

Howdy, folks. This is Mackenzie DeLullo, senior editor at The Texan. Welcome back to our final episode of Inside the Impeachment, Paxton on Trial. Today, we debrief it all. We discuss what's happened in Texas politics since Attorney General Ken Paxton was acquitted on all 16 articles of impeachment, what the biggest moments of the trial were, what the political ramifications will be going forward, and our top takeaways from the biggest two weeks in recent Texas history. Enjoy this episode. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie DeLulo here with Hayden Sparks, Brad Johnson, and Matt Stringer. Gentlemen, the last time we recorded, it had been about an hour since the verdict was decided by the

Texas Senate, and Attorney General Ken Paxton was acquitted on all 16 articles of impeachment that the Texas Senate heard during the trial, we've had a few days now to digest what's happened. Hayden, have you recovered at all? feels like a lot more time than that has passed because of all the things that have happened since the i should say verdicts plural were announced in the senate chamber but it has only been four days since the votes were taken on the senate floor to acquit paxton but we live in a different world politically since that happened even though it has only been a few days oh my gosh no kidding brad what about you you recover at all monday was pretty sluggish but i expected monday to be a much more hefty news day than it ended up it's not it's sped up since then but monday was pretty quiet in terms of paxton uh yeah repercussions most of the day twiddling my thumbs so that was nice i suppose matt what about you recovered oh yeah oh sweet matt's just ready to go well let's go ahead and talk about what has happened since the verdict

was reached brad and hayden i know you both listened to the lieutenant governor uh he's been making some media rounds for sure um on mark davis uh radio station making some pretty you know interesting statements. We're hearing a lot from him now that the gag order is no longer in effect. And after his pretty big speech, Brad, why don't you give us a rundown of what he said on Mark Davis? Primarily, he just discussed his role as the quote unquote judge in the trial and how it was for him having to pick up the rules on objections especially and how much Justice Lana Myers, whom he hired as his basically assistant during the trial,

helped him during it, helped him to get the hang of the objections. One anecdote he noted was that after the direct examination of Jeff Mateer, Tony Busby was coming to the podium to cross-examine Mateer and Patrick looked over at Myers and said, maybe you should take this since it's probably going to be pretty fast. And sure enough, it was. And she told him, no, you no you'll be fine you got this and so he reviewed that and underscored basically his post-verdict admonishment of the house and its process and the way it handled the whole impeachment situation and that was primarily what he discussed. There was another interesting tidbit he mentioned about a conversation he had with Speaker Phelan back at the tail end of this legislative session where they were trying to come to a compromise on school choice and property taxes before Siney die. As in Patrick's telling, as Phelan is leaving after that meeting,

he asked the speaker, are you guys really going to impeach Ken Paxton? That's what I'm hearing. And the speaker said, I don't know anything about that. That's up to the general investigating committee. And so speaker has not responded. We saw his response on Saturday

to the Lieutenant Governor's speech. It was equally as fiery. So, you know, no love lost between those two. And I have a feeling we'll probably hear the speaker's side of that sometime soon. some on the scale, talking about the behind-the-scenes negotiations, deliberations that were going on with senators and throughout the trial saying that he did not impose his opinion one way or another on the senators, which folks have certainly been wondering that since his speech on Saturday. Hayden, any takeaways from the interview on Mark Davis? Everyone knew the rules of the impeachment trial before it started. It was always the Senate's decision whether the charges against Ken Paxton were true and impeachable. Patrick at this point is expressing his opinion about the proceedings, which in a traditional trial and a traditional courtroom, judges often will make comments about a case that was heard in their courtroom. They may confine

their remarks to the end to preserve that fair proceeding, which is what Patrick did here. But it was always up to the Senate, whether Paxton was removed from office. And there have been a lot of reports, a lot of innuendo about the Senate. But ultimately, I've seen no evidence that there were improprieties as far as the verdicts go. And if there were senators who changed their minds overnight that's perfectly valid and legitimate constitutionally and under the senate rules that were passed beforehand so there has been a lot of chatter social media chatter and gossip about the the verdicts that were announced on saturday but this process was a political process by its nature, and it was initiated by the Texas House.

They chose to pursue this proceeding. So the process played out exactly as the Constitution sets forth, and Paxton was acquitted and is now resuming his duties as attorney general this week. Yeah, absolutely. Matt, let's talk about Mitch Little. Mitch Little is one of Paxton's defense lawyers. We talked about him during the course of the trial. He's been very vocal on Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it. I remember or I recall there was a tweet he tweeted right after that interview in which Patrick was talking about Phelan saying, hey, I don't know what's going on with the Paxton impeachment. And, you know, Mitch Little put out in which Dade Phelan is confronted about the impeachment in May and responds, I don't know anything about that and follows it up with an Elmo gif or something. Right. He's been very vocal on Twitter about how all this has gone down. I know you listened to a little bit of a Twitter spaces in which he, I forget exactly how that all worked

or who was hosting, but tell us a little bit about what he said publicly. I caught the majority or a large portion of, I guess, of a Twitter spaces with Mitch Little hosted by Matt Beebe. And the part that stuck with me that I listened to was that he was talking about how he's actually represented Pa, what would you call it, a commission based on a recommendation. I don't fully understand the details of those charges. But he explained how in the impeachment charges, you know, they were trying to impeach him because the process had dragged on for a long time under one of those charges claiming that he was delaying justice. But little explained that there's been this ongoing legal battle over jurisdiction, which is, you didn't want to pay him. So, that he expected that they might drop those charges or see them dismissed eventually whenever this thing plays out in the near future. So it was an interesting illuminating Twitter spaces. Yeah, certainly.

And the attorney general, who has been largely silent with the exception of some tweets, will be going on Tucker Carlson tonight at 5pm. He'll also be on Chris Salcedo's radio show tomorrow. So there will be plenty that we'll be hearing from the Attorney General and I believe Mark Davis as well at 9am tomorrow. So we'll be certainly hearing from the Attorney General in the coming hours. He is also in some of his tweets applauded House members for their support, at least the House members who did vote against the impeachment. Specifically, a couple who released statements that he responded to. Nate Schatzlein, a freshman Republican from the Fort Worth area, and Representative Tony Tenderholt, a Republican from Arlington. He applauded them publicly, as well as Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi, just thanking them for their support.

We also saw, Brad, you wrote a piece on this today, a member of the Freedom Caucus opting to leave the caucus over the Paxton impeachment. Walk us through that story. So Representative Steve Toth put out a very brief press release on Tuesday just on Tuesday, just saying that he was leaving the caucus over the Paxton impeachment. And quite literally that was it. There was no other explanation. Um, when I got ahold of him later in the day, he did not hold back. Um, he called the caucus feckless and said, they don't know what they believe in anymore, what they stand for anymore. It sounded like this had been coming for a while. And he, when talking to me, he cited the caucus's willingness to play ball with leadership more than he would prefer.

Now it's interesting actually looking at the membership. There are varying degrees of separation between these members and leadership. You have some that are fairly closely aligned, like Representative Briscoe Cain, who's a chairman, and Representative Cody Vassut,ut who was along with kane the gop caucuses um go to individuals for protecting republican bills on points of order if you're also on the house board of managers managers um but then you have on the other side represent brian harrison who just called for the speaker's resignation. So it's also part of the freedom caucus.

Yeah. And then everyone else is somewhere in between. So it's not like the, the entire caucus itself is, um, you know, a de facto member of leadership. That's absolutely not the case.

But, um, Toth still thought that they were too buddy, buddy, um, at least a portion of it, I guess. And it was met, his announcement was met with some criticism from members. I know representative Jared Patterson had some strong words, um, for Toth. Um, specifically, I think it was about the heartbeat act that had passed a couple of

sessions ago and citing members of the freedom caucus who had carried that piece of legislation and you know chiding toth for not taking the same approach and passing those big pieces of conservative legislation um i don't know if you have the statement in front of you but it was it was quite something to see and patterson he's not a member of the freedom caucus but there's a lot of relationship and overlap and policy overlap. Yeah, he said, fast forward through this, this attack from Steve Toth on members like Valerie Swanson and Briscoe Cain, who led the charge on the Heartbeat Act for multiple sessions is disgusting. Perhaps Representative Toth could learn a thing or two from conservative members like these who worked hard past conservative legislation and don't require their colleagues to clean up their messes and special sessions.

So, you know, a heated response draws an equally heated rejoinder from another member. And so good vocab board. Thank you. You're welcome. I was trying to say response twice. So but yeah, clearly there's no love loss there and um always spicy when someone leaves the freedom caucus yeah yeah and um you know they had just increased their membership to i believe they had 13 during session and since the end of the regular session they've had to leave for wildly

different reasons yeah or was it mashaheen left earlier this session very quietly very quietly um so i guess not always spicy but still i guess it's a you know contrast of styles yeah absolutely well thank you there okay gentlemen we are going to jump back and debrief the trial now um and talk about the biggest moments from the trial from both the prosecution's side the house board of managers side i'm reticent to call it the prosecution, but the House Board of Managers side, and Paxton's defense team. We'll start off with the House Board of Managers. Hayden, as you were there in the Senate chamber, I would love to hear what you think the biggest moment for the House Board of Managers team was during the trial. It's hard to say as far as the board of managers goes what their big moments were because

they obviously lost and having watched the entire trial the board of managers has been making its case all summer and the case against paxton has gotten so much more airtime than his defense that much of what we heard at trial were things that had already been in the mediablower lawsuit that was filed shortly after Paxton's subordinates went to the FBI with their spoken concerns. But in the Senate, the board of managers called one of their main witnesses was Ryan Bangert, who was the, he was a close aide of Paxton and a senior policymaker at the OAG. I think one of the strongest points of testimony was when he testified about Paxton's, according to him, desperation to push through the informal opinion that the managers unsuccessfully argued was designed to help Paul prevent foreclosures on his business properties. Banger was, in my opinion, by far the most articulate witness that

the managers called. He seemed to have his answers ready to go. He didn't seem to have any problem answering cross-examination questions. He seldom paused or hesitated during his testimony. He was very clear about what he thought, and his memory of those months of time seemed to be very clear, and he articulated his belief in Paxton's guilt very clearly and very well. But Bangert's testimony supported the allegation that Paxton was changing his tune on reopening Texas for Paul's benefit. This was a time when the OAG was seeking to get Texas back open and quash coronavirus pandemic regulations. And then this informal advice that the OAG issued came in and Bangert said that it struck him as bizarre that Paxton would suddenly be reversing his course on this particular type of policy. So that testimony was probably one of the more persuasive

points in the manager's case. Clearly, the Senate did not believe them. But if I had to choose one of the more persuasive witnesses and one of the more persuasive parts of his testimony, it would be Bangert saying how surprised he was that Paxton was desperately trying to get this opinion published, despite the fact that in Bangert's view, it contradicted the policy of the OAG as it relates to the pandemic. Bangert's testimony was probably some of the strongest testimony on the manager's side that we heard. I'd be curious if you'd agree with this, but the first two or three days of the trial, we saw it was just lawyers v. lawyers v. lawyers. The witnesses were lawyers.

The defense had their lawyers. The house board of managers had their lawyers. It was all just legal minds who were contributing to the conversation. And I think it was fascinating to watch the different whistleblowers specifically while they were up there. And to your point, I think Binger was the most unrattled by the lines of questioning that were lobbed his way. And Paxton hired very skillful attorneys who have a way of getting up there and, you know, doing their job very well when they're cross-examining these witnesses. And Banger, to your point, I think appeared the least rattled of those whistleblowers

who are up there. And his demeanor was what you might expect a seasoned courtroom witness to be. And I hate to just spit out these descriptions, but there is benefit to being in the room and watching them. But I think Mateer came off as anxious at times. And the other witnesses did not seem comfortable on the stand. They very much at one point, well, I won't say that because we're going to get into that later. But Banger was the witness that seemed like he really knew his stuff. And he did not seem bothered by the cross-examination by Anthony Osso, who was the attorney who did it, although Osso was a younger attorney, probably not Bangert's first rodeo with somebody like Osso.

So that might have been part of the reason, but Bangert seemed like the most well-put-together witness for the managers for certain matt i'm coming to you what was uh in your mind the biggest moment for the house board of managers during the trial well in in my opinion ranger maxwell's testimony was definitely a big moment considering his reputation and the really strong stance he took in describing Nate Paul and claiming the actions that Paxton wanted to take investigating federal authorities was a crime. To kind of echo back on some of Hayden's comments about Bangard and his cool and collective behavior on the stand, Maxwell, as a former ranger and law enforcement professional,

literally teaches how to testify. And that came up during his cross-examination. And he used very few words. He was very composed and, you know, stuck to his guns, so to speak, in testifying. You know, it's a powerful thing to have somebody with as much of a reputation as him sitting on the stand saying, you know, I think Nate Paul was essentially a criminal and that, you know, Paxton wanting us to investigate the federal authorities would have broken the law and, you know, interfered with the federal investigation, et cetera, et cetera. So no matter what, that's a big thing for the defense. There's no denying that. Now, that's not saying that the, or I'm sorry, it's a big thing for the prosecution. Now, that's not saying that the defense wasn't able to get up there and shoot holes in some of the things that he said and at least raise questions or doubt on those things, such as whether or not Nate Paul was a criminal, whether or not investigating a federal official is a crime.

And then there was also the big moment where I think it was Cogdell that was cross-examining Maxwell. He got up there, and he was really having a hard time getting Maxwell unnerved, under his skin, so to speak, just because he's such a calm, collected witness. And he said, I noticed that whenever the prosecution asks you questions, you can hear them just fine. But whenever I go to ask you hard questions, suddenly you have a hard time hearing me. And he says, I have to wonder, Ranger, given your ability or your expertise in testifying if you're doing this intentionally to throw me off. And that was where you had that moment where you kind of saw a little bit of a ranger kind of break that just poker face

and have a little bit of a grin there. And I forget exactly. He said, maybe. Maybe. And the whole Senate just cut up. And Cogdell very quickly composed himself. Yeah, he real quick deployed the angry trial lawyer, you know, attitude and fired right back at him. And, you know, Maxwell started, you know, trying to get back on top of his A game, you know, once again, just, it just, even if it was giving the defense an

inch, um, they were going to take it if they could with that witness. So overall, um, I think that was definitely one of the, uh, primary aspects of the trial. Certainly. Brad, what about you? I will say also, I do have a grudge against you because you stole my answer i'm gonna use my second yeah just fyi missy carey the chief of staff former chief of staff for the prosecution her testimony i thought provided the defense with the biggest win obviously it did not pan out for them and we didn't hear much of it after this but during

her testimony she said that morale was low in the the attorney general's office um this was back in 2020 um especially with security detail um and travel aides who were closer to the alleged affair that Paxton was having at the time than anyone else, going with him wherever the places he was going. She also mentioned that staff had been answering calls from Senator Angela Paxton asking about her husband's whereabouts. And it seemed at the time, and it probably was the case, that the prosecution was putting a spotlight on Article 17, which was about using the Office of the Attorney General to facilitate the affair.

And clearly that didn't pan out we like i said they didn't really come back to it much at all maybe that was the plan with um laura olsen the alleged lover but she did not get up and testify so ultimately it didn't it didn't have the effect the prosecution wanted to but at the time every almost everybody thought oh that's a killer for for paxton that's that is a bullseye for the prosecution yeah in terms of when we were watching at the office i know our um reactions to her testimony were like watching it. It seemed as though it was the most damning up until that point. And we were waiting for something along those lines to be presented by the house.

And the other part of it was she was not a hostile witness to Paxton like these, like these whistleblowers were. Yeah. She was more neutral. Numerous. Many of the witnesses that managers called said on the stand that they had nothing against Paxton. Yeah Drew Ricker, who was one of their supposed to be one of their bombshell witnesses, got up there and said, I'm not accusing Paxton of anything.

Yeah, exactly. No, absolutely. That was a very, very big moment for many reasons. And that testimony was incredibly notable. I want to bring up Brandon Kamek real fast as a big moment for the House Board of Managers. His testimony that he acquired the list of people to serve subpoenas to from Nate Paul and Nate Paul's lawyer, Michael Wynn, which was a pretty big moment also for the prosecution and said he would not have served the documents in hindsight. Very big moment. He also then was questioned by the defense and, you know, some things were clarified or, you know, some stuff happened.

But Kamek, I'd say if you were looking at the articles, I think a lot of people watching who'd watched a lot of the trial thought Paxton was potentially most vulnerable on those CAMEC articles. And so when that was passed and when the votes went through and it was like 14 to 16 or whatever they were, I think it was like, okay, he might just be fully acquitted here. Another notable moment that wasn't necessarily a big evidence moment for the House Board of Managers, but was still notable was the story he told, the anecdote he told about, Kamek told, about going to a Starbucks with Webster, Brent Webster, who was the first Assistant Attorney General following Mateer, and Attorney General Ken Paxton, where they met and talked about some of the concerns they had. Kamek talked a little bit about the concerns he had and some confusion he had about

his role. And Webster said, hey, like, we're not going to be able to pay you. Your contract is null and void. And said, you know, I've like tried to empathize with him, or I don't know what he was trying to do, but said, I've had to eat $40,000 invoices before. And Kamek did not take well to that comment. And then Paxton and Webster almost drove off without taking Kamek back to the office. They'd carpooled to the Starbucks to have the meeting in public and then almost left him there at the Starbucks. So that was not a big evidentiary moment, but it was a pretty notable and viral moment. Did it come off to you that Webster was trying to empathize with him?

Because the way Kamek told the story, it sounded like Webster was like to empathize with him because the way cam act told the story it sounded like webster was like suck it up cry baby i've had to eat a forty thousand dollar invoice so you can eat this invoice welcome to the profession right welcome welcome to being a lawyer whippersnapper like that's that's kind of to me what the what it sounded like camic was saying webster's demeanor toward him was but that could also be me reading a bit too much into it. I think you're spot on. I'm glad you clarified that because empathize was not the right word. I didn't have one in the mind at the moment,

but I think that's a much more accurate way to put it. Kind of like a condescending mentorship. Yeah. Or that's how Kamek came across. That's how Kamek portrayed it. Yes. Webster didn't testify. So then if Webster said it,

he might've said, okay, well i'm i was trying to you know empathize with his situation and say i've had it worse man but if you were being told that you were not going to be paid for your work you probably would not be very receptive to uh those types of gestures so that's probably why camac registered that differently and told the story differently on the stand. I can understand why he was upset.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Well, he testified to being in the dark about a lot of this throughout his role with the O.A.G. of just being excited to be on the team. He said he was flattered to be approached by the attorney general and was excited from a career perspective to be part of, you know, to be contracted with by the OAG. And it went downhill very quickly. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

Well, let's talk about the defense and their big moments. Their big moments where they had some pretty substantial wins. Hayden, why don't we start with you as to what you think the biggest moment for Paxton's defense was? I think little Mitch Little's cross-examination of Vassar went very well for the defense. He, that interaction between Little and Vassar probably could have produced many reasonable doubts for senators, the least of which, not the least of which being vassar's no evidence comment which the managers had to spend the entire trial cleaning up after he also said vassar said answering little's questions quote i don't think i owed general paxton anything end quote little probably more than the other lawyers hammered the point that paxton's re-election empowered him to run

the OAG as he saw fit. Murr said in the closing argument that Paxton's stance or that the defense's position was that they weren't denying what Paxton was accused of, but he just is saying that it's okay because he was reelected. But that wasn't, I don't know if Murr misunderstood the defense's contention or if that's something he wrote beforehand or what happened, but that was not the defense's position. Their position was that Paxton had a lot of latitude as the duly elected AG and that many of the stances that he took and many of the policy positions that he took and many of the policy positions that he took as OAG were legitimate and within his authority. The defense did not concede that

he, for instance, issued that midnight opinion directly to help Paul. In fact, there was testimony that Paxton thought it was in order to help homeowners, But I'm going somewhere with this. The defense's main contention was that Paxton had the latitude to make that policy decision because he was the duly elected AG. Little really hammered that point in his cross-examination with Vassar. Vassar was discussing the internal workings of the OAG when Paxton is not there. And there was one point where they were talking about how much authority Mateer had when Paxton wasn't in the building. And Paxton was in the situation they were discussing at a campaign event in Ohio, allegedly. Little asked Vassar what his definition of absent was for the purpose of the first assistant being

in charge while Paxton was gone. And Vassar said the statute doesn't define it. And Little really kind of threw his hands up and says, what do you think it means? In other words, you're saying that y'all had the ability to act in Paxton's absence, but you can't even say what that means. So there were lots of moments like that. The statement of Vassar that he didn't feel like he owed General Paxton anything, I think was a strong moment for the defense because their whole point was that these were disgruntled former employees who were trying to stage a coup against somebody that they had policy differences with. And Vassar made a lot of clumsy

statements while he was on the stand. And those were just a sample. Um, he cried when he was asked about Paxton criticizing him. And, um, he had talked about how he was out of work for all these months and, um, little established that he was offered jobs that he turned down or he was given job opportunities that he passed up. Um. And the thing that he was crying about during his testimony, he wasn't crying because he thought he wasn't going to be able to feed his kids or that he was going to lose his house or something. He was crying because Paxton had said something unflattering about him in a news release. So I think Vassar's testimony probably backfired on the managers and Little's cross-examination was, in my view, one of the fiercest cross-exes in the trial and probably one of the stronger points for the defense. Certainly. Absolutely. Matt, what about you? Moments for the defense. I think just their overall ability to develop explanations to Paxton's actions to show the witnesses assumed many things and had personal biases, such as Ranger Maxwell's perception of, say, Nate Paul impacting his decisions and also their ability to address key legal questions,

such as does an investigation of the feds really constitute a crime? And does the buck stop with Paxton when it comes to asking his subordinates to do things? One of the many things you heard from every witness was, you know, what caused them alarmed at this was Paxton was not following the regular rules and procedures. And they would say, they would essentially attack that by characterizing it as bureaucracy, you know, set your bureaucratic rules aside, I think was what one of them said at one point. You know, is he not the elected attorney general? Does he not have the authority to sign this, You know, all this stuff. And you'd get a series of answers before it ultimately end up at yes.

So all that to just say creating reasonable doubt and look where it led to the results in the end. Yeah, absolutely. Bradley, what about you? Well, my first one was Missy Carey's statement that seemed like a big win for the prosecution something that seemed like just as big a win but for the defense was when during drew wicker's questioning uh he admitted he was satisfied to see the invoice that suggested paxton paid for the renovations himself of course the allegation was that nate paul paid for the renovations uh but with wicker who as hayden said was supposed to be the the house one of the house's star witnesses basically said yeah i'm satisfied

this isn't it doesn't no longer appears to be anything nefarious to me at the moment um another person who was not a hostile witness in a lot of ways that were that was expected to be he didn't seem alarmed by paxton at all like and he kept talking about how um you know he looked at angela paxton like a mother figure and you know he's best friends with the paxons obviously not necessarily anymore but yeah you're exactly right about that yeah and his the reason he was a key witness was he heard the contractor say when discussing with paxton himself about renovations i need hold on i need to check with nate and i think that was that happened what three times or something but he was the one that heard that and told the

whistleblowers the eventual whistleblowers about it. And yeah, that was definitely a big win for the defense. Which for a moment when he was, when he was, when Wicker was testifying, who is the former aide to General Paxton who would travel with him and was his body man, basically would just be present when the Attorney General needed anything and was very trusted by the Paxton family. In his testimony, when questioned by the managers, he said that he had heard the contractor say, let me check with Nate on three separate occasions,

which at the time when that testimony was given was huge, big deal. Obviously, hearing Nate Paul explicitly named in a conversation with the general contractor was a big deal. And then when Busby, like you said, presented those documents, it undid a lot of the work that the managers were trying to do. Yes. There you go.

Okay. Well, I want to home in on a moment that wasn't necessarily actually for the senators. Tony Busby, one of Paxton's defense lawyers, in his closing argument on the last official day of the trial proceedings that lasted 55 minutes, much to Cogdell's chagrin, made a lot of really big statements that I think served well in the court of public opinion for the Paxton team, you know, appealing in some ways to Republican voters, to supporters of Paxton, and, you know, making quotes and saying things like today, the Bush era in Texas is over, saying that the Speaker of the House in pursuing impeachment, got his feelings hurt and was presiding over the house while intoxicated, making these big statements that maybe could not have been made during the trial when you're questioning witnesses,

but were a big deal for voters and for folks who are watching the trial in support of the Attorney General. A lot of big moments there. And I think it was largely talked about by folks in the time between when those closing arguments ended and when senators came back to vote on the verdict. Big moment. Okay, well, let's move on to the political ramifications of this before we end our podcast here. There has been no announcement of a special session to come although yesterday on a call um with reporters and tbpf the governor said that the special session for school choice would happen next month in october so that's about as much information or at least solid information that we have at this point and saying something we all

already knew yes i don't think it has ever come out of his mouth that explicitly but he had said he had intimated as much before at this point we've heard specific dates when it's going to start but we are just waiting for official confirmation from the horse's mouth that this is happening and when it is happening now of course we know and we talked about on the last episode the patrick feelin feud is at an all-time high the house and the senate feud at an all-time high. Who knows what that will look like going into the special session and school choice. Now, the governor also said on that call, which I think is very notable, and that there are concerns that the House will be reticent to pass school choice or members who are Republicans, but perhaps in more rural areas or more

centrist leaning, would be concerned to vote for a proposal right now, specifically after the Senate voted the way that they did. But I think it's notable in that the governor said he would call additional special sessions if need be to pass school choice. So something's got to pass, right? I mean, I don't know what this looks like. I don't know what the proposal will look like, but the governor seems very sold on passing school choice talking about you know pushing this all the way to the primary and making it a primary issue um so that that puts them up against a rock for sure there's um there's a lot of talk about combining into one big omnibus bill whatever school choice plan they come up with, potentially an increase to the basic allotment

and then teacher pay raises. And obviously that strategy is to get everyone to hold their nose and vote for the thing they like that's about it, that's a part of it. But Democrats are very opposed to any school choice plan. So will a teacher pay raise and an increase to the basic allotment be enough for them to hold their nose and vote for the school choice plan. So will a teacher pay raise and an increase to the basic allotment be enough for them to hold their nose

and vote for the school choice plan? It's, you know, the reverse is true about the Republican side. So, um. And the House members are not necessarily scared of upsetting the Senate or listening to Governor Dan Patrick, but how much does Abbott's,

you know, foot on the pedal weigh them in that direction? And remember when Abbott's foot on the pedal weigh them in that direction? And remember when Abbott vetoed a bunch of bills, does that play into this at all? Yeah. I mean, there are members that are still very upset about bills that were killed in both chambers. Yeah. It's wild. Okay. My final question for you gentlemen, before we wrap up our final episode of Inside the Impeachment, what is your biggest takeaway from the trial or the biggest question you have following the trial? I'll go ahead and start. We talk a lot about how political attention spans, voter memories are short, things change,

dynamics are rapidly in flux. But will Senators Kelly Hancock and Robert Nichols, both Republicans who voted for many of the articles of impeachment, will those votes matter as they run for reelection in 2026? Brad, you tweeted this and made this known on the day that the verdict was read. They are not up for reelection this cycle. So they've got some time before voters go to their ballot box and determine whether or not they want those senators to maintain their seats. So I'm curious about that, of how much that will play into the reelection bids about three years from now. That's a lot of time. And then two, is this the new normal for a working relationship between the Speaker and the Lieutenant Governor and the Texas House and Senate? How long do these

ramifications, just how long is this the status quo and i'm curious if that will if there will be any mending of relationship or if this is just the new normal it's a pretty big political happening to recover from who should i choose next brad why don't we go to you well it kind of alluded to it during the discussion about the biggest moments, but taking the temperature of the Texas legislature or the people watching this impeachment throughout the trial showed incredibly different attitudes towards either individual things that happened, you know, people on both sides will have entirely different views of how something played out, but also who is winning at the time. You know, when, when after, uh, Ryan Vassar said the no evidence quote, I'm sure the defense felt really good.

Like this is it. We got this in the bag. These, this entire thing is thing is a nothing burger. And then when Maxwell and Drew Wicker were part of his testimony or Missy Carey's testimony happened, the prosecution had been feeling pretty good. It's just nobody knows, nobody knew what was going to happen at any given moment and how it would end up even though the momentum the pendulum of momentum seemed to swing quite frequently back and forth and in notable ways too yeah yeah and you know this was obviously a very historical event i remember reading into the pa ferguson impeachment and can't help but think, you know, those same kinds of momentum swings happened back then, even though now we know how it all went. But in the moment, nobody knows.

Absolutely. Matt, what about you? I think it's going to be interesting to see what comes from Dan Patrick's calls for impeachment reform. You know, at the end of the trial, he gave the speech, rather scathing critique of how the House handled the investigation or lack thereof, not placing the witnesses under oath, conducting it all behind closed doors. He cited John Smithy's speech on the House floor where he said, we are being presented with triple hearsay, essentially. That is, witnesses interviewed, not under oath, behind closed doors, who the investigators took their comments and-

And they weren't cross-examined. That was another criticism. They weren't cross-examined, but those comments were essentially characterized by the investigators on an unsworn report to the House General Investigation Committee, which presented and both of them pointed to the fact that the House did not follow the historical precedent which had been set, which they could have easily researched and said, okay, the investigation in public with, I think the words were, with sunlight. Placing the witnesses under oath, cross-examining them, and giving the members time to review things and think about it. Instead, this was rushed through. So, Patrick's wanting a constitutional amendment that requires the House to allow the members at least two weeks to consider the evidence, to place members under oath, and to essentially reinforce under the Constitution what has now been historical precedent that needs to be followed because the House broke it. And led to this.

Also, he's wanting the full audit, which he just signed the letter to, I think it was the comptroller? Was it the comptroller? The state auditor. State auditor. Wanting an audit since all of this began back in March of the entire cost. Yeah, I want to know what it costs. I really want to know. It'll be very interesting to see whether or not it costs more than the $3.3 million

that Paxton initially went to the House asking for in the settlement, because now we're going to be back to that, I guess. They may still have to pay it after all of this. So it's not like it was ever going to be a trade-off. He might be back in special session asking for $3.3 million on top of what we just spent undergoing all this. So Patrick did say he wants this amendment proposed next regular session. So we're going to go through a primary cycle, no telling who keeps their seats, what new faces we see, et cetera, et cetera.

Whether or not they can get two thirds in the House next go around to put a impeachment reform through, I think that'll be very interesting. Yeah. And how much the House drags its feet for that, you know, as it's a direct or indirect criticism of their process. Absolutely. Hayden, what about you? Big takeaway, big question. What you got? Well, I don't think the house is going to be impeaching anyone for a long time because it's easy to lose the thread back to how this all started when we're talking about the testimony and which side had the bigger moment on different days of the trial, the House decided to insert itself in this situation for whatever reasons, justified or not, that they thought were appropriate. But it was a decision that the House made because Paxton has a litany of legal issues that he still is facing. The issues that Paxton has could have

been left to the courts. The House could have said to Paxton, we're not paying your settlement, you have to come up with the money yourself. And Andrew Murr and Dade Phelan could have left it at that. They chose to impeach him instead. This wasn't a multiple choice SAT question where the choice was pay the settlement or impeach Paxton. They could have decided not to pay the settlement and then left it alone and let the courts handle the criminal allegations. The criminal courts handle the securities fraud charges and let the civil courts handle the whistleblower lawsuit and then let the voters handle the rest of it in 2026. That is a very viable option that the House could have gone with,

but they chose to take this massive gamble with impeaching Paxton, both the manner in which they did it and the case that they put on at trial, and they lost. So I think the takeaway here is the House will probably be, if it ever impeaches another elected official, will probably be a lot more judicious and careful in the way that it goes about that. And we may be voting on a raft of changes to impeachment in 2025, if not abolishing it altogether, depending on what Patrick feels is necessary to end this feud that has now started between the two chambers. Because this cannot,

from a policy perspective, you can't have the two chambers because this cannot this from policy perspective you can't have the two chambers deadlocked forever there are people who like deadlock because it means the government's involving itself in in in less policy but eventually there will have to be some kind of resolution so i don't know what we'll be voting on as a public in 2025. Probably won't be abolishing impeachment altogether, but it will probably be some kind of change to this so that, as Brad and Matt pointed out, it won't be so that this event won't be the historical, won't be the precedent set that is set going forward. But instead, these policy changes that I suppose would either be passed in a regular some of those constitutional amendments on a special session call. So this could have major policy implications. Absolutely. If Patrick wants to push the issue. Yeah, which the lieutenant governor has been started to be very vocal that the Gag Order is over.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for contributing each day that we recorded to Inside the Impeachment. Folks, thank you so much for listening. And it has been our joy to chat with you for so many days in the last couple of weeks. And we will catch you on the weekly roundup. 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.