Dumpster Fire Outside Ken Paxton's Office Shows 'Documents' on Fire

The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is asking for the public's help in connection to a suspected arson attack after a fire broke out in a dumpster outside his Austin office on Wednesday.

On Thursday, The Quorum Report editor Scott Braddock posted a video on Twitter of what appears to be the same blaze with the caption, "lots of paper, maybe some documents on fire in the dumpster outside the Texas Attorney General's office."

The fire broke out hours after the Republican-led investigation House General Investigating Committee accused Paxton of committing multiple crimes and ethics violations while in office which could lead to his impeachment, including misusing official information, abusing his official capacity, and retaliation.

The three-hour Texas House committee hearing evidence from lawyers on Wednesday outlining a series of allegations against Paxton, such as taking bribes from an Austin real estate developer and then firing four deputies who reported, and attempting to land a job for a woman he was having an affair with.

Paxton has denied the allegations and attacked the investigation into him, calling it "the false testimony of highly partisan Democrat lawyers with the goal of manipulating and misleading the public is reprehensible."

The Texas attorney general's office tweeted surveillance footage as it asked for assistance in identifying "a person of interest in an arson" and urged people to contact the Austin Fire Department if they have any information.

One of the videos, which has a timestamp of just before 7 p.m. on Wednesday, shows a person walking on a loading dock next to the dumpster fire. A second clip shows what appears to be a man in a white jacket walking in the same area before the fire breaks out.

"The person of interest is the individual that appears in a white jacket and some type of head covering in the video that does not have flames in it," the office said in a follow-up tweet.

Newsweek reached out to the Auston Fire Department via email for comment.

Elsewhere, the Austin Fire Department responded to a fire at home in the early hours of Wednesday morning which may have been caused by a lightning strike.

Firefighters responded to the scene and were able to put out the fire at a house on the 9000 block of Ipswich Bay Drive, which started in the attic around 4:30 a.m. There were no reports of any injuries as a result of the fire, and those living at the address were woken by their smoke alarms.

Update 05/25/23, 9:51 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.