Man at center of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton impeachment in jail on FBI detainer
AUSTIN — Nate Paul, the man at the center of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment, is in jail on an FBI detainer, according to jail records.
Paul, 36, was booked into the Travis County jail at 4:25 p.m. Thursday on “undetermined” felony charges. The arresting agency is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. No attorney for Paul was listed.
It’s unclear what the charges are or whether they are connected to Paxton, a staunch conservative Christian and third-term Republican. Trista Moxley, a public affairs specialist in the FBI’s San Antonio Division, declined to elaborate.
She noted: “Department of Justice guidelines do not allow me to provide more information at this time.”
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One of Paxton’s impeachment attorneys, Dan Cogdell, said he didn’t know what the charges were and that the FBI did not reach out to him ahead of time. But he assumes they involve Paxton in some way, and added that he believes the FBI is going to try to get Paul to turn on his client.
“You don’t have to be Nostradamus to assume that they’re going to try to flip Nate Paul to testify against Ken [Paxton]. I don’t know that for a fact. But I’d be very surprised if that wasn’t the case,” Cogdell told The Dallas Morning News. “Because otherwise, you know, logically [the FBI] would have arrested them both at the same time.”
Paul has been under FBI scrutiny since at least 2019, when the agency raided his home and commercial real estate company. The next year, the FBI launched an investigation into Paxton after several of his high-ranking employees reported the attorney general had repeatedly abused his office to help Paul, including in ways they said would have shielded the developer from law enforcement scrutiny.
Those employees later, all of whom are no longer at the agency, sued Paxton under state whistleblower laws alleging retaliation. Earlier this year, they agreed to a settlement that would have resulted in Paxton apologizing and the state doling out $3.3 million to the whistleblowers.
But House lawmakers bristled at the funding request from Paxton’s agency, and instead quietly launched their own investigation into the whistleblowers allegations and the attorney general’s alleged misdeeds.
The probe culminated in the Texas House overwhelming voting to impeach Paxton last month. Among the articles of impeachment were the whistleblowers’ accusations that Paxton in 2020 repeatedly abused his power to help Paul. In exchange, Paul allegedly bribed Paxton by renovating his home and employing a woman with whom the attorney general allegedly had an affair.
The Senate will convene a trial later this summer to determine whether to remove Paxton from office.
The FBI has not brought charges against the attorney general. Paxton has previously denied wrongdoing, and called the whistleblower and impeachment allegations against him a partisan attack.
Cogdell said Paul will be brought before a magistrate judge, likely Friday morning, after more information about the charges will be released.
Source: The Dallas Morning News
