Paxton whistleblowers vow not to give up legal fight: ‘It’s about justice’

Whistleblowers in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) case have vowed to not give up their legal fight, just days after he was acquitted on 16 articles of impeachment in a Texas state Senate trial earlier this month.

“We are not going away,” Blake Brickman, former Texas deputy attorney general for policy and strategy, said at a press conference Monday. “For us this case has always been about more than money. It’s about truth. It’s about justice.”

The impeachment investigation alleged that Paxton was handing out political favors to donors, including interfering in investigations and retaliating against whistleblowers. A group of former state employees, including Brickman, had come forward with their concerns over Paxton’s actions in September 2020 to the FBI.

The group of whistleblowers had filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination and retaliation and had reached a tentative settlement in February with Paxton, agreeing to pay them $3.3 million after they were fired for reporting him on alleged bribery and abuse of office. He was also supposed to provide a statement saying that he “accepts that plaintiffs acted in a manner that they thought was right and apologizes for referring to them as ‘rogue employees.’”

The group of whistleblowers is saying that they filed a new motion in the state Supreme Court, arguing that Paxton has not upheld his end of the settlement agreement, including the multimillion-dollar payment and his apology for calling them “rogue employees.”

“So today, we filed a renewed motion asking the Supreme Court to lift the abatement and restore our case to the active docket,” Brickman said. “We remain hopeful that the Supreme Court like the trial court, and the Court of Appeals will reject OAG’s ridiculous arguments, ridiculous argument that the attorney general is above the law. This is a particularly ironic position given this page on the OAG’s own website, promoting the very law the office now attacks.” 

There were eight days of witness testimony before the Texas Senate acquitted him, largely focusing on his relationship with Nate Paul, a real estate developer and donor to the Texas attorney general.