Assclown of the Year: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (but was there ever any question?)
- Twitter / @KenPaxtonTX
- Ken Paxton catches a limo ride with Donald Trump.
Assclown alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
There was no shortage of Texas leaders willing sully their office and betray the trust of their constituents in 2020, but was there ever any question Attorney General Ken Paxton would seize the assclown mantle for 2020?
First, there was the years-old, slow-motion securities fraud case against him. Then, this fall, seven of his own top aides called for law enforcement to look into whether the AG committed bribery and abuse of office. Paxton subsequently found ways to jettison all of those aides, some of whom are now suing under whistleblower statutes. Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating the allegations they raised, the Associated Press reports.
Rather than resign his position and stop bringing red-assed embarrassment to his state and to the Republican Party, Paxton has ripped a page from the Trump playbook and engaged in all manner of diversionary tactics which only serve to point out what a shitty lawyer he actually is.
Those diversions include all manner of shrill allegations of voter fraud in addition to asking the Trump White House to withhold pandemic-aid money from Harris County because it dared to encourage mail-in voting.
However, Paxton’s pièce de résistance was a request that the U.S. Supreme Court reject the choice of voters in the November election and pitch out ballots filed in states that went for Joe Biden. The suit was roundly ridiculed by legal experts and rejected by the high court, increasing speculation that it was more motivated by seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump than any courtroom precedent.
Funny how world-class assclowns seem to flock together.
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