The Texan Podcast - Interview: Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi on Paxton Impeachment

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi, a former member of the Texas House of Representatives, joined The Texan’s senior reporter Hayden Sparks to discuss his vocal criticism of the chamber’s decision in May to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton. “I’ve been representing the Republican Party of Texas in what is effectively a declaration of civil war by Republicans in the House, namely House leadership,” said Rinaldi, comparing the leadership of Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) to that of former Speaker Joe Straus. “The members didn’t even know [the impeachment vote] was going on until 48 hours before. They were surprised by it. And then, instead of leaving the members to vote, they whipped votes like it was a policy matter. So the way it was handled was extremely top-down.” In addition to discussing his criticisms of the impeachment process, Rinaldi also weighed in on how he believes the Senate should handle the trial, how the votes on impeachment could play a role in the next Republican primary election cycle, and how the division between Republicans on impeachment fits into the broader political battles with Democrats. Enjoy this content? Be sure to subscribe for similar interviews and The Texan’s Weekly Roundup — a podcast released every Friday that brings you the latest news in Texas politics.

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the Texans podcast. In today's special episode, senior reporter Hayden Sparks interviews Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi about the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton. Thanks for listening. Be sure to follow us for more interviews like this and an hour-long weekly roundup of the news from our team every Friday morning. Howdy, y'all. My name is Hayden Sparks, and I'm a senior reporter with The Texan. Today, we are joined by Republican Party of Texas Chairman Matt Rinaldi, who also served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives. Today we're here to speak about the historic impeachment of suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton. The Texas House impeached Paxton in May on 20 charges including abuse of office, bribery,

misappropriation of public resources, and conspiracy. His trial in the Texas Senate is scheduled to begin on September 5th. While the Senate cannot impose any criminal penalties, the chamber can permanently remove him from office and bar him from running for office in Texas again. Chairman Rinaldi, you're a former House member and you are the chairman of one of the most powerful political parties in the country. How would you characterize your role personally in this impeachment process and the role of the Republican Party of Texas? Well, my role as chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, whether it be the impeachment or anything else, is number one, to represent the interests of the Republican Party of Texas and its members across Texas.

Number two is to speak the truth and make sure that I accurately represent the truth. And I think both of those apply to this impeachment here in the state of Texas. I've been representing the Republican Party of Texas in what is effectively a declaration of civil war by Republicans in the House, namely House leadership. I don't want to put all Republicans there because, you know, some certainly aren't in that boat. And number two is to speak the truth about the impeachment in the manner in which the impeachment vote went down, which was unprecedented in Texas history. You know, hearing no evidence, hearing no witnesses, not giving members the opportunities to speak with investigators,

not presenting evidence to the body, and ultimately impeaching the attorney general who had just been recently elected on a vote that took place after a debate that lasted less duration than the debate on the tampon tax that occurred just weeks before. So that's what I've been doing during this debate is effectively mediating and looking out for the interests of the Republican Party as this has been going on. As you're reflecting on your experience as a House member, would you say that much of this is being driven by Speaker Phelan and his allies, or is it being mostly driven by political will in the House General Investigating Committee from your perspective?

Oh, it's being driven by the speaker. I mean, this speaker is acting much like Strauss did in that it's a very top-down leadership. And you have to understand, this impeachment took place about 48 hours after the members heard about it. I mean, traditionally, what we've gotten with impeachments, whether it be the Carrillo impeachment in the 70s or the Ferguson impeachment or the Walsh Hall impeachment, I mean, there have been many impeachments that didn't go through. There was extensive evidence heard so as to build a case not only for the members but for the public. In this case, not only did the public not hear about it, the members didn't even know what was going on until 48 hours before. They were surprised by it.

And then instead of leaving the members to vote, they whipped votes like it was a policy matter. So the way it was handled was extremely top-down. Many of the critics of this process highlight the speed between the announcement of the investigation and days later the vote to impeach Mr. Paxton, but very little of the criticism has gone to the charges themselves. So help me understand your position. Is it your stance that Paxton is innocent of the charges or that the process of this impeachment is not the proper way to resolve these allegations? How do you know either way? How does anyone know either way? They didn't hear evidence. They didn't have witnesses sworn in.

They didn't present a case in the House. They came up with an impeachment document and they gave members two hours to vote on it. I mean, I don't think it's fair to say you're not contesting the truth of the matters asserted. It's on the burden of the accuser to prove those matters. They didn't produce anything. They produced a bunch of investigator statements, investigators of which were all connected to Harris County Prosecutor's office and Ann Johnson, the Democrat on the committee. They weren't allowed to question witnesses. They weren't allowed to hear a defense in every previous impeachment.

That was the most important part. I mean, think about it. in the House of Representatives, even the Democrats there tried to build a case publicly so that the public can look at it and go, okay, I don't agree with the charges, but they presented evidence. Here, there was nothing. There was a vote. They whipped votes. They said, hey, 48 hours from now, we're going to impeach the speaker and you're going to vote this way. It's going to be a speaker's vote. And if you don't, you're not getting any of your bills heard. I mean, that's no way to conduct an impeachment. I want to invite you to respond to an argument that was made by Andy Murr, who is the chairman of the investigating committee that brought this impeachment. He said that even opponents of the impeachment process should want what he called a

quote, full and fair trial in the Senate, end quote, to reach a resolution and present the evidence against Mr. Paxton in the Senate trial. What is your counter argument to that? I want the Senate trial to reach a full and fair resolution. And given the House's complete inability or unwillingness to follow the law and existing precedent on impeachments, if I was a senator, I certainly would vote to sustain the motion to dismiss and dismiss 19 of the 20 charges against him. If you look, I thought the briefing that the attorney general's attorneys presented, I think it was last week, the briefing was very good. And it presents a very sound basis for not only did the House not follow proper impeachment procedures, but even assuming the allegations are true as a matter of law, they can't succeed because of the doctrine that you can't be impeached for publicly known matters that occurred prior to your last re-election.

So I don't think that there is any merit to the impeachment. We look at law. We look at facts. I don't even think you reach the facts because I think even assuming the allegations are true, prior term doctrine that the charges are not legitimate and cannot be sustained in the Senate? Well, I mean, yeah, let me restate it. When you go into a civil case, right, you have your charging document, you have your complaint or your petition in state court. If that's inadequate, if your charging document doesn't state your allegations with specificity, with adequate specificity, it can be dismissed. You don't just go to a trial on the facts.

You dismiss the case because why would you go through a trial? Why would you put somebody in front of a trial if they can't even allege facts that entitled them to relief? And I don't think that's happened here either. What you have is, as far as evidence goes, evidence necessary to sustain that impeachment also, you don't have any testimony. You don't have any facts. You don't have any sworn testimony. And I think the response to that was, well, we have affidavits. We have sworn statements from witnesses. I can't even get a temporary injunction in a civil case in Texas that's worth $1,000

based on an affidavit alone. We believe in having witnesses testify so that they can be cross-examined so that we can find the truth of the matter asserted. And I don't think the House was interested in truth. The House was interested in a political persecution. You mentioned it's the role of the party and your role as its chairman to represent the members of the Republican Party of Texas. I'd like to move a little bit to some of the political dynamics. Clearly, there's a lot of animosity between elected Republicans and grassroots Republicans. That's not really anything new, but this impeachment process has accented many of those dynamics. I don't think I, let me just, I didn't mean to interrupt. I'm sorry. I just want to,

I want to jump in. I would say some elected Republicans, because I think the vast majority of elected Republicans are in sync with the grassroots and are representing their constituents in a way that they should. I mean, you know, I disagree with a lot of things they do. I definitely don't think a lot of them are bold enough. But what I'm meaning to say is, I don't think there's animosity between the vast majority of Republican officeholders in the grassroots. I think it's limited to a small group of people in the House that are closely aligned with House leadership. So it wouldn't be fair then to paint all Republicans in the House or in the Senate with the same brush is essentially what you're saying? No. And you know what?

There might have been people who voted for the impeachment too, that I wouldn't paint with that brush because I don't think there's animosity. I think it was a very bad vote if they did that. But I do see animosity between House leadership and those members who closely follow House leadership, like Justin Holland, for example, who issued a statement attacking grassroots Republicans. And you see that from other members as well. I think you saw it from Jared Patterson. You see a lot. And there's certain individuals who do that quite a bit. I don't think that's the majority. I think the majority sentiment is like you hear from Brian Harrison, where they're extremely

grateful for the support of the Republican Party grassroots. They may disagree with them on a vote or two, but they matter. And they do. What is the party's plan for elected officials such as Justin Holland, who, as you highlighted moments ago, has made public statements more or less saying that he is not concerned about the RPT's position on really anything? What is the, what is, as the leader of the party, does the party have plans to oppose those types of politicians in the coming primary? So the party doesn't take positions in the primary generally, rarely ever does. There are races, or I'm sorry, I should say under rule 44 of the Republican party of Texas rules, you, the Republican party can censure a candidate and then oppose them in the primary.

But that happens very rarely. It happened twice before in history, uh, Joe Strauss and Tony Gonzalez, Congressman Tony Gonzalez. Um, so I don't know if there's going to be a round of censures coming down. I don't know if the party is going to officially get involved in those primaries. We'll see. There have been several county parties that have censured the speaker and he has a primary opponent already that I think is quite formidable. But I don't know the position the SREC is going to take. I do know that I've become involved in a limited number of primaries so far. It's usually my practice to become involved in a limited number of primaries.

You don't want your chair getting involved in every primary. But I think Paxton's impeachment will definitely factor into which races I get involved in. As you look at the primary races that are coming, what do you notice could be different about this primary considering the Paxton impeachment? It's an issue that I've seen motivate grassroots voters like few have before. It's something concrete that they can latch on to, something that I don't think the members who voted for it can avoid. And I think it's a very emotional issue for a lot of people because they look on a federal level and they watch the last Republican president be subject to multiple political

persecutions after he was impeached twice when he was in office. We find out now that the basis for one of those impeachments was just blatantly false. And for another one of the impeachments was not as facially absurd as the first one, but the basis for it was, again, it's political. So they see Democrats politically persecuting Republicans, and then they see House Republicans in Texas politically persecuting a Republican attorney general. Now, that's up to them to show it's not a political persecution. And you do that through evidence, you do that through following a process. And you do that through making your case in public during the impeachment process. You don't do that by announcing 48 hours before you're going to impeach an attorney general that, oh, we're going to impeach an attorney general. By the way, Representative Goldman

will be calling everybody to whip votes. And if you don't vote with us, we'll consider it a vote against the speaker. That's not how you do it. Many of your former colleagues, well, I say many, all of them are under a gag order that prevents public comment on this matter such that it could, in the opinion of Lieutenant Governor Patrick, impair the partiality of this proceeding. But you're a former member. You're not under that gag order. What are your plans during the trial? Are you going to be outspoken about this during the trial? Or what are some things that you're planning to do as this proceeding moves forward? I mean, I'm always outspoken. I'm here. So, no, I'm just going to, you know, I'm going to give my opinion on it. I'm going to give what I believe to be the truth. And it's coming from somebody who's not like in the tank for the attorney general.

I haven't been in the past. We've had our differences. We've had many differences over the past two years. And I'm not defending him in this context because of, you know, some loyalty or blind loyalty to somebody. I'm just telling it like it is. And it's how a lot of the grassroots see it as well. And I think, you know, that's how you become a successful leader of a grassroots party is you're giving voice to the grassroots. And I will continue to do that as best I can. What are your concerns about the general election in 2024?

Do you think there are risks that the electorate might look at this and say, we made a mistake last cycle. We need a change in leadership. Or do you think general election voters aren't necessarily thinking that way at this point? Are you talking about between Republicans and Democrats? Yes. Are they looking at this and going, man, the Republicans are in charge and we have all of this turmoil going on. Do we possibly need to have a change in leadership at state level? Well, it's not good. It's not good when House Republicans are effectively campaigning against Republicans by trying to say that one of your top statewide officials has committed impeachable offenses. It's absolutely egregious when they do it without presenting evidence.

But no, it doesn't help. and that's part of the problem. And that's part of what I think Republicans are frustrated about is Democrats see the goal and their goal is to turn this country and everything we value about it into something terrible, at least from our point of view. And for Republicans, our goal right now is to defeat the left so that we can raise our children in the same country that we grew up in. What the House is doing now, it's completely destructive of those ends. I think that's a good segue into a broader question. Regardless of the outcome of the trial in September, and I ask you this just Tex the fact that it's going on shows a very big problem with the way the House is structured. And it wasn't something that was unforeseeable. It was something that I was very loud about before the session and namely getting rid of Democrat chairs. It wasn't because it was an issue that we could rally around and get rid of Democrat chairs. It was because there's a real

consequence to that. And that consequence is the Speaker's constituency becomes Democrats as well as Republicans. And in order to get the votes of Democrats, he has to offer something. Whether that be election legislation, the head of the Attorney General who's a Republican, he has to offer something. Whether that be election legislation, the head of the attorney general who's a Republican, he's going to offer something, killing Republican bills. And we can't have that now in this political climate. You know, 10 years ago, it may have worked when the differences between parties were a couple of percentages, percentage points on your tax rate. You know, when we weren't talking about things like, you know, teaching your children in school that they're racist and that Marxism is the proper way forward for our country. When we weren't talking about grooming children at school,

when we weren't talking about issues like that. But we are now. And we need to realize that Democrats are using every tool at their disposal to change America. And if we do not use every tool at our disposal to fight that and to defeat them, we are going to lose. And if we can't get two chambers together in the biggest red state in the country to at least have that goal in mind, we are in deep, deep trouble. I began by asking you about your role in the Republican Party in this process. Looking forward, can you tell me, do you plan on running for chairman again? Or what are your future plans? What might be in the cards for you? I haven't announced anything yet. I'll always be serving the Republican Party

and this job has been great. It's been my honor to serve and be a voice for the grassroots. And, you know, I'll figure it out when we get closer to convention. But definitely, definitely look forward to serving in whatever capacity I can going forward. Chairman Rinaldi, thank you so much for sitting down with us for this interview. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to this special episode of the Texans podcast. As the impeachment trial for Attorney General Ken Paxton begins in September, you can count on the Texan to continue reporting the facts so that you can stay informed on the situation and the opposing viewpoints.

We break down the details of Paxton's alleged affair and favors to a friend that ultimately led to the House impeachment, as well as the concerns from critics about the speed of the impeachment process at the end of the legislative session. To stay informed on state politics and local politics in Texas

and support our mission of reporting the facts, be sure to subscribe to The Texan with the link in the description.