Paxton Denies Abbott Snub that's on Tape
with Ringing Plug that AG Donors Won't Like

Capitol Inside
May 4, 2021

The New York Times called out Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday for lying after he accused the newspaper of making up a story that made it appear like he wasn't backing Governor Greg Abbott for re-election in 2022.

"Fake news @nytimes strikes again!" Paxton declared in a Twitter post today after the newspaper quoted him as saying he didn't support the governor in a bid for a third term next year when both are expected to be on the ballot again.

"Let me be clear: I support @gregabbott_TX!" the Republican AG exclaimed. "He's a great Governor and a Great Texan."

The NYT reporter who'd penned the piece on infighting among Texas Republicans responded with a tweet of her own on how she'd recorded the interview with Paxton.

"Hi AG Paxton, during our interview, which is on tape, you would not commit to supporting Abbott in his primary for governor," Elaina Plott in the social media rebuke of the attorney general's false claims on the report.

Paxton appeared to be suggesting in the interview that Texas leaders like himself and Abbott have a history of staying neutral in primary fights involving other elected officials. Paxton knows that such a claim would be false if that's what he actually meant.

“The way this typically works in a primary, is it’s kind of everybody running their own race,” Paxton told the journalist when asked if he supported Abbott for a new term. “I don’t think he supports me; I don’t support him.”

Abbott has been Paxton's most valuable mentor since the two were elected to their current posts in 2014. Abbott had served as the Texas attorney general for a dozen years before the promotion to governor.

Paxton could be on the mark with his speculation on Abbott's personal position on the race for attorney general next year when Land Commissioner George P. Bush plans to challenge the controversial incumbent in the GOP primary election. Abbott might be inclined to remain on the sidelines in a primary fight with two well-known statewide officials in opposite corners. But the governor had been one of Paxton's closest allies up to now.

Paxton's ringing endorsement of the incumbent governor in the unsuccessful attempt to discredit the New York Times might not sit well with some of the AG's largest contributors like Farris Wilks of Cisco and Tim Dunn of Midland family as the financiers of a hard right that despises Abbott.

Paxton's reaffirmed support probably won't keep Abbott from watching over his shoulder for possible primary challenges from the AG or others in a pool of potential gubernatorial contenders that includes Texas GOP Chairman Allen West and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.

Paxton was much softer on Abbott in the NYT interview than West and Miller have been when asked about the governor's performance during the coronavirus pandemic. Paxton said Abbott had “done his best under the circumstances” as the director of the state response in the COVID-19 fight. But Paxton slipped in a shot when he said he wished that the state would have reopened earlier than Abbott had done.

Paxton has been the most controversial statewide officeholder here in recent years - having been indicted early in his first term as AG on felony charges of security fraud before being accused last year by former high-ranking assistants of bribery and other criminal misdeeds in connection with a donor and a woman who's been portrayed as a mistress.

But Paxton has shown no obvious concern about the potential for a prison term with a sweeping denial of the crimes of which he's been officially charged or the fresher allegations that are the subject of a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into his dealings.

Paxton became a national celebrity late last year when he tried and failed to have the U.S. Supreme Court invalidate the general election results in battleground states that Donald Trump lost in his failed bid for a second term as president. Paxton's star soared even more in the conservative base when he helped Trump whip up the Republicans in the audience at a rally on January 6 before they stormed the Capitol in the deadly insurrection that sought to disrupt the transfer of power to Democratic President Joe Biden.

The Texas AG's wife - GOP State Senator Angela Paxton of McKinney - appeared at her husband's side during the pep talk at the rally that erupted into the riot that represented the worst attack on democracy in America in history.