The State Bar of Texas is reportedly investigating the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, for litigation challenging President Joe Biden‘s wins in several swing states in the 2020 election.
Although the state bar initially declined to look into Galveston Island Democrats Club President Kevin Moran’s claims that Paxton’s lawsuit was frivolous and unethical, a tribunal that oversees grievances against lawyers reversed that decision late last month, according to the Associated Press.
“I filed the grievance on grounds, in part, that Paxton is my attorney and all Texans’ attorney, that he wasted our tax dollars filing this clearly frivolous lawsuit, that he wasted his staff’s time and misused his powerful office,” Moran said in an email to the Washington Examiner. “Seems the Board of Disciplinary Appeals has decided that I do, indeed, have standing to file such a grievance.”
Paxton, a Republican, has less than a month to respond to Moran’s claim that his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin misled voters and “embarrassed” the state of Texas, according to a June 3 letter from the bar.
A representative for Texas‘s state bar told the Washington Examiner in an email, “The State Bar is required by law to keep disciplinary matters confidential unless they result in a public sanction or are filed in district court, so we are unable to comment or even confirm any report of this nature.”
In early December, the Texas attorney general brought the case to the Supreme Court, where it was promptly rejected by the justices for his failure to “demonstrate a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections.”
“The genie is out of the bottle,” Paxton said of his claims of voter fraud, predicting that the same issues would plague the twin Senate runoff races in Georgia that January. “So now, going forward, how do we know in Georgia whether we can trust those results either? And those also affect us, because the U.S. Senate, obviously, if it flips, it affects my state in having an ability to get things done.”
Both Senate runoff races in Georgia were won by Democratic challengers to GOP incumbents.
A controversial figure, Paxton was reported to be under investigation by the FBI in November over claims that he improperly used his office to benefit a wealthy donor. Paxton said at the time that he was prepared to defend himself against the allegations.
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Federal and state elections officials have said there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and dozens of legal challenges were rejected in the courts. Still, former President Donald Trump and his allies claim the contest was rigged.
Representatives for Paxton did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s requests for comment.
