Demanding Abbott Letter on CAIR Status
Makes AG Easy Target for Cornyn Attack
Capitol Inside
January 28, 2026
Governor Greg Abbott set Attorney General Ken Paxton up to be berated when he fired a letter to the state lawyer on Wednesday demanding that his office take action to shut down the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Texas by canceling the nonprofit status it apparently enjoys here.
Abbott has sought to convey the appearance of neutrality in the primary fight for the U.S. Senate seat that Cornyn is fighting to defend with Paxton as his biggest threat in a GOP primary field that includes U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston. But Cornyn's campaign gave the impression that it knew the communique from Abbott to the AG was in the works when it responded to it initially with an attack on X just 19 minutes after the governor's initial post with a copy of the letter on the social media site.
"It is truly pathetic Attorney General Paxton must be ordered to do his job by the Governor," Cornyn said in the first tweet on the letter that appeared 12 minutes before the attorney general made his first official comment on it there. "After needless delay, AG Paxton must now finally work to end the nonprofit status of terrorist-aligned organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as his incompetence has made Texans less safe. Attorney General Paxton should spend less time doing the bidding of his trial lawyer buddies and more time doing the jobs voters elected him to do."
Abbott informed Paxton that the attorney general's office
had the ability to put CAIR and other groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood out of business in the Lone Star State if he chose to do so with or without orders from the governor.
"Voluminous documents detail the dangers posed to Texans by the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR, and their affiliates," Abbott said in an email on the action he instructed the three-time elected attorney general to take. The governor underlined the word "demanded" in the opening line of the electronic message that his team made into a link to the letter.
"Regardless of the façade CAIR attempts to portray in press releases, CAIR cannot be allowed to use its 'nonprofit' status as a shield for sponsoring terror, advancing radical Islamism in Texas, or fronting for the Muslim Brotherhood. The same goes for other entities pretending to engage in charity by day, while sponsoring terror by night. Under Texas law, ‘the Texas Attorney General is the only elected official charged with regulating’ nonprofits that may be violating the law, including by examining their records and stripping their corporate charters. You have used these tools before; I urge you to use them now to combat CAIR."
While Paxton might have felt offended by the tone of Abbott's dictate, he responded almost an hour later with a post on X with a statement that he's "demanding" information from public school districts in Texas in connection with "an ongoing investigation" into potential ties to CAIR and "Islamic Games" that some apparently are hosting.
Abbott has declined to take sides publicly in the U.S. Senate contest while focused on his own race for re-election to a record-breaking 4th term as the state's top leader. Abbott and Paxton had appeared to be allies since they were elected to their current posts for the first time in 2014.
But the prevailing sentiment inside the Austin beltway has been that Abbott wants Cornyn to be the nominee in the Senate race amid fears that Paxton would bring baggage to the ticket as a candidate who was impeached by the Texas House in 2023 and sued by his wife for divorce on "biblical grounds" last year.
Abbott might be waiting to see if Trump will come off the sidelines in the U.S. Senate showdown here before the first-round vote less than five weeks away. Trump and Paxton have been very close since the Texas AG tried to overturn the 2020 election on his behalf at the U.S. Supreme Court. But Cornyn has managed to cozy up to Trump in anticipation of the fight with Paxton - and the lack of a Trump endorsement for either major contender in the Senate battle has been viewed as a win for the incumbent solon.
Independent polling has shown Cornyn to be running even with Paxton after trailing him in the Senate contest's early stages. Abbott's own polling, which is ongoing, may show Paxton losing ground based on the tenor of the letter on CAIR that made Paxton an easy target for Cornyn today.
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