Paxton trial: Closing Arguments End, Senators Now Deliberating

The House managers and Paxton's defense team showed markedly different approaches to this morning's closing arguments. Now the senators have to make up their minds.

         Welcome to our special coverage of the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton here at Life Its Ownself! Please subscribe and encourage others to do so. Your support inspires me to write and publish regularly. All my content is free, but your paid subscription is a big affirmation. Please let me know how I’m doing by 1) liking, 2) subscribing, 3) sharing with others, and 4) commenting below.

        But first, your moment of Ken … Ken Paxton, in the midst of a fight for his political life, stares forlornly at the Candy Crush Saga screen on his phone.

Friday, September 15, 2023

         (The Trans-Pecos) – “Beware the Ides of September,” said some Roman or other, and Ken Paxton celebrated today by showing up for the closing arguments in his impeachment trial. It was hard to tell if he was paying attention, or how much.

         Which might have been lucky for Paxton’s lawyer Tony Buzbee, whose closing argument was so bombastic, accusatory and fact-free that Paxton might have stood up halfway through it:

         Buzbee accused, by turns, the RINO wing of the Texas GOP (“This is a political witch-hunt, a partisan fight within the GOP,”) the media, “drunken” Dade Phelan, TLR, the whistleblowers (some of whom he mocked personally and, in my judgment, improvidently), and the universe itself of a broad conspiracy to bring down the Greatest Attorney General of Texas Ever.

         He even mentioned George P. Bush twice by name, once shouting “The Bush era in Texas ends TODAY! They can go back to Maine." To which one commenter replied, “Isn’t Ken Paxton going to Maine next week to appear on Tucker Carlson’s Twitter show?” Irony, thy name is Kenneth.

         Paxton’s presentation was so cringeworthy that his co-counsel Dan Cogdell, left with only five minutes to close, began his remarks by saying, “I am not going to yell and scream and shake my fist at you.”

         To the extent Buzbee and Cogdell tried to make any cogent points, they focused on the words of the Articles of Impeachment and the burden of proof. Cammack was a “special prosecutor” (although the provenance and authority of that term are suspect), but Article 5 says “attorney pro tem.” The OAG is not (technically) a “public protector of charitable organizations,” And so on, technical objections all. Such nitpicking may convince a senator or two, but they were probably going to acquit Paxton anyway

         Buzbee’s exuberance did more harm than good today, as I suspect it has all during the trial. He is a master of the melodramatic assertions and loud arguments, which may work in a Houston courtroom but is not the style of the more laid-back and collegial Texas Senate.

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         Representaitve Andrew Murr (R-Murrstache), the head of the House managers, gave most of the closing argument for the prosecution Selecting each Article, Murr gave a brief summary of the evidence and then invited senators to review it in bulk for themselves. He said Paxton, exposed in his perfidy, elected to “deflect, deceive and demonize,” terminating the whistleblowers and then commissioning a “whitewash” report and “hush money” settlement. He even gave previously un-discussed details of the “Dave P.” Uber account, with GPS data proving how many times Paxton had used it to visit his Laura Olson and Nate Paul himself.

         Murr reserved that last few minutes of his closing argument to Representative Jeff Leach, who described Paxton as a “friend, mentor and brother in Christ.” He told menbers this vote would be “very personal,” but that “the people of Texas deserve answers, and the Legislature should be able to get them for them.”

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         With that, closing arguments were done and Patrick instructed the senators on what happens next. They are to deliberate on all 16 articles and individually be prepared to vote on all of them. They were sent off to work until 8:00 tonight and from 9:00 until 8:00 tomorrow. If they have not decided, they will come in Sunday at noon, then back to the 8:00 am – 9:00 pm schedule next week.

         Patrick promised that the public would get notice (a half hour, maybe) when the senators were coming back. Life Its Ownself will give notice on the Substack Notes app as soon as we hear they’re coming back.

If you do not have the app, I recommend you get it; you can get it here on Apple or here on Google.