The FBI arrested a Texas real estate developer at the center of the impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Nate Paul was arrested in Travis County on Thursday on a federal warrant, Kristen Dark, a spokeswoman for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, told the Washington Examiner. He is being charged with eight counts of making false statements to mortgage lending businesses and credit unions for allegedly overstating and understating his assets and liabilities, according to the Houston Chronicle. Paul had been in trouble with authorities previously, beginning with a United States Department of Treasury raid of his home in 2019, according to the Texas Tribune. Former Paxton aides accused the attorney general of using his office to further the business interests of Paul after the latter gave him a $25,000 political donation in October 2018.
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Paul is also accused of helping Paxton in other ways, including remodeling his house and giving a job to a woman he allegedly had an affair with. In exchange, Paxton would use his office to intervene on behalf of Paul in cases against him. A lawsuit filed by former aides turned whistleblowers said that the attorney general was motivated by a “bizarre, obsessive use of power.”
Paxton was investigated by the House after he requested that it pay $3.3 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the whistleblowers, who claimed retaliation after they were fired. The House brought up 20 articles of impeachment against him on May 25 and voted overwhelmingly in favor of it.
Paxton has categorically denied any wrongdoing and portrayed the impeachment as politically motivated. He enlisted the help of high-profile attorney Tony Buzbee, who appeared for the first time as his attorney at a press conference on Thursday.
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“It was rushed in 72 hours with a four-hour hearing,” Buzbee said of the impeachment. “And we talked about, no witnesses, testimony or documents, hearsay. It’s very disturbing to me, as a lawyer, that this can happen in our state of Texas.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the FBI’s San Antonio Office for comment.
