Ken Paxton is No Stranger to Controversy. Here’s Nearly 20 Years of Scandals & Headlines

Our friends at The Barbed Wire compiled every serious scandal their Attorney General has faced during his political ascendancy...and somehow managed to emerge from unscathed

This piece by Juliana Lightsey was written and published by our friends at The Barbed Wire on February 17, 2026. To support their work or read more from this phenomenal publication, please visit them at: https://thebarbedwire.com/

Early voting in Texas began on Tuesday, and one of the most competitive races in recent Texas Republican history is about to take shape. Ken Paxton, the current attorney general and MAGA Republican, is in full-swing campaign mode for a national role, gunning for the U.S. Senate in 2026 against incumbent John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt. That race is too close to call, according to a Feb. 3 poll by JL Partners showing a three-way tie among the candidates. A runoff in the March 3 primary election could tilt the scales in Paxton’s favor, as the more right-wing candidates typically prevail in Texas Republican primary runoffs, according to Texas Monthly.

Paxton has become a huge name in state politics — not just for his popularity with staunch conservatives, but for a string of political scandals he has weathered over the years. He’s been in Texas politics for over 20 years, and he’s been making headlines for just as long. Paxton has survived an impeachment by the Texas Legislature, a biblically-charged divorce, a decade of securities fraud charges, and he’s also become a multimillionaire during his time in public office. But of course, there’s a lot more. We’ve compiled every serious scandal Paxton has faced during his political ascendancy, and somehow managed to emerge from unscathed.

(Credit: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0)

2008: Failing to Disclose His Investments

When Paxton was a Texas House member representing McKinney in 2008, the Associated Press reported that he and another lawmaker had investments in a company that got millions from state contracts — contracts that Paxton had voted on through state spending bills.

Paxton had profited from the contracts that Watchguard, a video equipment company that supplies police stations, secured while he was in office. His investment in the company came to light after a competing company sued, saying that the contract bidding was rigged in Watchdog’s favor.

Paxton claimed he had no knowledge of the company’s state contracts at the time, which he would have been required to disclose to the Texas Ethics Commission under state law. However, the Associated Press reported that Watchguard’s website boasted that the company was “held by an influential shareholder group that includes three state representatives.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, after coming under scrutiny, Paxton shifted his investments, including in Watchguard, into a blind trust in 2015. A blind trust is an account managed by a third party trustee without the beneficiary’s knowledge in order to prevent a conflict of interest.

However, the Journal uncovered texts between Paxton and the trustee, who is a friend of his, concerning his stock trades in 2020, a violation of the “blind” nature of the arrangement. And Paxton received $2.2 million from his investment in Watchguard when the company was bought in 2019, the Journal reported.

2013: Stealing Another Lawyer’s Pen

After a $1,000 Montblac pen was mistakenly left by one lawyer in a metal detector tray at a courthouse, it found its way into the hands of then-state senator Ken Paxton, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The expensive ballpoint had been a gift to attorney Joe Joplin from his wife, and after he realized it was missing, asked a sheriff to review the security footage. The video revealed Paxton had pocketed Joplin’s pen, the sheriff told the News. After a phone call, Paxton returned the pen to Joplin.

When asked by the Dallas Morning News what he thought had happened, Joplin did not speculate.

“You can surmise that,” he said.

2015: Securities Fraud Charges

The year Paxton assumed the office of attorney general also kicked off a nine-year legal saga over securities fraud felony charges.

Paxton was indicted in the late summer of 2015 over accusations of defrauding investors, according to Chron. The charges stemmed from accusations that Paxton had encouraged other legislators to invest in McKinney-based company Servergy in 2011 without telling them he would make a commission, Chron reported. Paxton allegedly misrepresented himself as an investor in the company, which was charged with fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2016.

Paxton and Republican supporters painted the 2015 indictment as a partisan attack by Democrats. Jim Henson, head of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, told Chron at the time that their argument would be difficult to uphold as the legal charges unfolded.

“It’s going to be a little harder to sustain the argument that this was a politically motivated persecution over time,” Henson said. “But my suspicion is that we will not see the attorney general going particularly quietly into the night.”

Paxton, indeed, did not go quietly. After pleading not guilty to the charges, the case was stalled by disputes over how much the prosecutors should be paid, following pushback by commissioners in Paxton’s hometown of Collin County, according to the Associated Press. Back and forth changes to the legal venue between Collin County and Houston further delayed the case.

After nine years, during which time Paxton was re-elected as attorney general twice, Paxton struck a deal with prosecutors in 2024, agreeing to pay about $300,000 in restitution and do community service with local food pantry organizations in Collin County to get the charges dropped, the Associated Press reported.

Paxton continued to characterize the case as a “political prosecution” upon its settlement, according to the Texas Tribune.

2020: FBI Investigation of Bribery and Abuse of Office Accusations

A group of conservative attorneys who worked in Paxton’s office reported him to the FBI in October 2020, accusing him of bribery and abuse of office, according to KVUE and the Austin-American Statesman.

The FBI began looking into the claims that Paxton had misused his office to aid friend and political donor Nate Paul, a wealthy Austin real estate developer. The attorneys from Paxton’s office claimed Paxton hired an outside lawyer to investigate Paul’s claims that the FBI had improperly searched his home, according to the Associated Press. Paul also said in a deposition that Paxton recommended he hire a woman with whom Paxton had an affair in 2018, the AP reported. Paul has since been hit with felony wire fraud charges.

After the allegations spurred an investigation and subsequent impeachment trial in 2023, the FBI investigation changed hands from Texas federal prosecutors to Justice Department officials in D.C. And in late 2024, the Justice Department quietly declined to continue pursuing the case, according to the Associated Press, putting to bed yet another high-stakes probe into the Texas politician.

2020: Sued for Firing Whistleblowers

After reporting Paxton to the FBI in 2020, at least four of the attorneys who worked in his office were fired, and promptly sued the attorney general for violating the Texas Whistleblower Act, which prohibits employers from taking action against public employees who report violations of the law.

The lawsuit made its way to the Texas Supreme Court in 2023 before Paxton agreed to pay the attorneys $3.3 million and issue an apology, according to the Texas Tribune. However, the payment would come out of state funds, and required approval of the Texas legislature.

After the agreement was made, state Rep. Jeff Leach, (R-Plano), who oversees the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee, told the Tribune he felt “troubled that hardworking taxpayers might be on the hook for this settlement between the Attorney General and former employees of his office.”

As the whistleblower case and FBI investigations led the legislature into its own impeachment trial of Paxton in 2023, the lawsuit bounced around the legal system, until in April of 2025 a judge ruled against Paxton and ordered a payout of $6.6 million to the fired attorneys, the Tribune reported.

According to the Tribune, Paxton initially appealed the ruling, calling it “ridiculous judgement that is not based on the facts or the law,” but dropped the appeal in July, leaving the legislature to once again approve to foot the multimillion bill.

2022: Contesting the 2020 Election Results

The State Bar of Texas sued Paxton for professional misconduct in 2022, after he brought a lawsuit against Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin in 2020 over discredited election fraud claims. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out Paxton’s lawsuit, saying Texas lacked the standing to sue other states over their election procedures.

The Texas Bar’s lawsuit stemmed from complaints over Paxton’s lawsuit, over money and time spent investigating false claims that made up Paxton’s arguments about the 2020 election results, according to the Texas Tribune. The Bar was looking to sanction Paxton with a punishment ranging from a reprimand to disbarment.

The Texas Supreme Court dismissed the Texas Bar’s lawsuit in January 2025, on the grounds that the sanction would violate the Texas Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.

2023: Impeachment Trial

In May 2023, after the mounting FBI investigation and whistleblower lawsuit, the Texas House investigation committee unveiled 20 articles of impeachment against Paxton based on the abuse of office and bribery charges. The investigation centered around Paxton misusing his office to aid with Nate Paul’s legal issues, the Texas Tribune reported.

The House voted 121-33 to impeach Paxton, suspending him from office and marking only the third time in history the legislative body has impeached an official.

The impeachment was then kicked to the Texas Senate, requiring a trial and two-thirds of senators’ approval to permanently remove Paxton from office.

After a two-week Senate trial in September of 2023, Paxton was acquitted of all charges and restored to office after none of the articles met the 21 votes necessary. The trial included witness testimony to Paxon’s alleged attempts to investigate Paul’s enemies, delay foreclosures of his properties, and dig into police investigations of Paul, as well as allegations that Paul paid for Paxton’s home renovations and covered up his affair in return, the Tribune reported.

Only two Republican senators voted in favor of Paxton’s conviction, according to the Tribune.

2025: Divorce and Infidelity

In July 2025, the attorney general’s wife, State Sen. Angela Paxton, took to social media to announce she was filing for divorce.

“Today, after 38 years of marriage, I filed for divorce on biblical grounds,” she wrote in her post. “I believe marriage is a sacred covenant and I have earnestly pursued reconciliation. But in light of recent discoveries, I do not believe that it honors God or is loving to myself, my children, or Ken to remain in the marriage.”

Although Angela Paxton did not expand on her “recent discoveries,” the divorce announcement came after years of publicly reported infidelity by her husband.

In 2018, Ken Paxton gathered his staff, and with his wife by his side, confessed to them that he had been having an affair, and promised to recommit to his marriage, the Texas Tribune reported.

Then, the swirling allegations concerning Paxton’s aid to Nate Paul brought his relationship with a former Senate aide into the national spotlight. House impeachment managers alleged that Paxton had asked Paul to hire the woman so she could move to Austin, and that Paul and Paxton had shared a secret Uber account that Paxton used to meet with the woman.

Through her husband’s Senate trial, where the affair allegations played a central role, Angela Paxton sat stoically, recused from voting but listening to the proceedings. She tweeted biblical verses throughout the trial. After Paxton’s acquittal, his lawyers disputed many of the allegations brought against him, but not the infidelity, according to the Washington Post.

Paxton’s messy divorce has not gone unnoticed by his Republican rivals for the U.S. Senate. In response to a Feb. 4 post by Paxton on X claiming Cornyn will lose the race by huge margins, the incumbent senator’s team fired back.

“Ken, when this over, you will have nothing. Which turns out to be the same thing you offered to give Angela in divorce proceedings. This after you cheated on her multiple times,” the TeamCornyn account wrote.

2025: Mortgage Fraud Investigations

Two weeks after Angela Paxton announced she was filing for divorce, an Associated Press investigation revealed that the Paxtons had been claiming three different homes (one in Dallas and two in Austin) as their primary residence, saving them thousands of dollars in mortgage loan payments.

Paxton was also simultaneously collecting tax breaks on two different homes in 2018, via a homestead exemption that is only meant for a single, primary residence, according to reports from the AP.

Other properties the Paxtons own, including a million-dollar “luxury cabin” in Oklahoma and a home in College Station, have been listed on rental sites, in violation of each residence’s mortgage, according to AP’s investigation.

Paxton bought the Oklahoma luxury home in 2022, but failed to disclose the property in his required annual transparency report to the state, KUT News reported in 2023. Additionally, a Tampa, Florida home the Paxtons own, as well as four other properties across Hawaii, Utah, and Florida were not disclosed by Paxton, KUT News said.

2026: Suing and Investigating Texas Organizations

As he’s campaigned for U.S. Senate, Paxton has used the Texas Attorney General’s Office to file a flurry of lawsuits against everyone from doctors to tech companies and local school districts.

Over the span of two days in February, Paxton took legal action against Bexar County over a legal defense fund for immigrants, asked a judge to declare a Muslim civil rights group to be declared a foreign terrorist organization, and demanded records from a Houston anti-fascist group that posts information about alleged neo-Nazis online.

Paxton also launched an investigation into Austin Independent School District in early February over a student walkout to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement, demanding documents from the district. On Feb. 16, he announced he would be investigating three other Texas school districts that also saw protests, including Dallas ISD, Manor ISD, and North East ISD in San Antonio.

“I will not allow Texas schools to become breeding grounds for the radical Left’s open borders agenda,” Paxton said in a statement.

---

Get more of the coolest, most relevant, and wildest stories from The Barbed Wire in their free Wild Texas newsletter: https://thebarbedwire.com/subscribe/