The Texas Supreme Court has dismissed a protracted and controversial attempt by the State Bar of Texas to discipline the leadership at the Office of the Attorney General. The ruling puts an end to what the OAG described as four years of “lawfare” and political retaliation surrounding actions taken by Attorney General Ken Paxton and First Assistant Brent Webster related to the 2020 election.
The case stems from a lawsuit filed by the Texas State Bar’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline, which sought to impose sanctions against Paxton and Webster over their involvement in a lawsuit challenging the validity of the 2020 election. Texas v. Pennsylvania was filed at the U.S. Supreme Court in December of that year alongside a coalition of 18 states.
The legal challenge questioned voting mechanisms in several states and aimed to temporarily halt them from certifying vote counts ahead of the vote of the Electoral College. However, the case was dismissed, and the State Bar of Texas launched its legal attack on Paxton and Webster.
In September 2022, the district court dismissed the disciplinary charges against First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster, asserting that the allegations were baseless. The State Bar appealed the decision to the Texas Supreme Court, which has now affirmed the district court’s ruling, effectively ending the disciplinary action for Webster.
“After four years of lawfare and political retaliation, the Texas Supreme Court has ended this witch hunt against the leadership of my office,” said Paxton.
The Texas State Bar attempted to punish us for fighting to secure our national elections but we did not and will not ever back down from doing what is right. We have seen this playbook used against President Trump and other effective fighters for the American people and I am pleased that this attempt to stop our work has been defeated.
Webster called the actions of the State Bar “disgraceful, ridiculous, and a disservice to the people of Texas.”
“Thankfully, with President Trump back in the White House and these attempts to wage legal warfare against us defeated, we can finally get back to making Texas and America great again without distraction,” added Webster.
Justices Debra Lehrmann and Jeff Boyd dissented with the majority opinion, holding that it doesn’t violate the separation of powers for the judiciary to punish the OAG or his staff.
“In essence, Boyd and Lehrmann take the radical, judicial supremacist position that courts could throw the attorney general and his senior staff in jail if the court disagrees with their filings,” said Tony McDonald, a Fort Worth attorney. “This would put the unelected state bar above the people’s elected attorney general and destroy Texas’s constitutionally guaranteed separation of powers.”
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