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Trump is now offering pardons to associates who don't even want one, Axios reports pic.twitter.com/WS8SYCQMf0
— Jan Wolfe (@JanNWolfe) December 8, 2020
This is embarrassing. It’s worth bearing in mind that Texas AG Ken Paxton, who filed the suit, is under criminal investigation by the FBI after his own entire senior staff turned him in for corruption. Maybe he thinks disgracing himself further will win a pardon. https://t.co/zmfwTeLcRl
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) December 8, 2020
Look, over there! Illicit Democrats attempting to vote! Details of the accusations against Paxton here at CNN:
… There is, meanwhile, an accumulating body of allegations against Paxton. A letter obtained in October by the Austin American-Statesman and television station KVUE, noted that a number of Paxton’s top aides had reported to “the appropriate law enforcement authority” a “potential violation of law” by Paxton. The staffers insisted they had “a good faith belief that the Attorney General is violating federal and/or state law, including prohibitions relating to improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses.”
Several of Paxton’s former employees filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the attorney general, saying Paxton retaliated against them after they accused him of intervening in legal matters to help his friend, a real estate investor who had made a $25,000 donation to his 2018 campaign, according to the suit. Paxton has denied their allegations…
Paxton has already been indicted for felony securities fraud, accused of failing to register with the State Securities Board while selling stock to investors without disclosing he was making a commission. The case has been hung up on questions of venue, and payment and replacement of county prosecutors, and has slogged through appeals that have dragged it out for five years without adjudication.
The indictments did not stop Paxton from winning reelection at the same time his wife was being voted into a seat in the Texas state senate. In one of her earliest acts in public office, Angela Paxton filed a bill to broadly increase her husband’s power with legislation allowing him to exempt individuals from state securities law. Surely, it is only coincidental that those are the laws Paxton is accused of violating. The measure appears to have stunk too much even for the Texas legislature and didn’t get a committee hearing…
Also, NY Attorney-General went on The View today, to remind the Squatter-in-Chief that she has his number (all his numbers), and that cute theories about stepping down in order to let Very Briefly President Pence pardon him would not protect him, even assuming Trump could stand to be reignite the ‘Nixon, only dumber & less effective’ comparisons.
Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Fire Sale At the <del>Grift</del> Pardon FactoryPost + Comments (114)