Paxton impeachment cost state $5.1 million, auditor report finds

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The impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton cost the state about $5.1 million in taxpayer funds, largely to pay for lawyers hired by House leaders to prosecute Paxton in a Senate trial that ended in his acquittal, according to a report released Friday by the State Auditor’s Office.

The total is roughly $900,000 higher than what the Tribune previously reported, based on records from the House’s impeachment case, which did not include a full tally of the chamber’s outside legal costs.

The House, which impeached Paxton over allegations that he accepted bribes and abused the authority of his office, accounted for nearly 87% of the state’s overall tab. Of the more than $4.4 million spent by the lower chamber, more than $4 million went to “contracted professional services,” which the auditor’s report described as “costs for attorneys, investigators, and other related costs.”

House records released in late 2023 showed that invoices topped $3.5 million for the two renowned Houston attorneys who led the case against Paxton, Rusty Hardin and Dick DeGuerin.

Additionally, the auditor’s office found that the Texas Senate spent $435,000 on costs that included lawmakers’ per diem payments, travel and producing the journal documenting the trial. The Attorney General’s Office spent an additional $230,000, while two other agencies — the Texas Legislative Reference Library and the Texas Legislative Council — combined to spend roughly $8,500.

The auditor’s report came at the request of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has spent more than a year pressuring the House to reveal its impeachment expenses. Patrick, a Republican who oversees the Senate and presided over Paxton’s trial, previously alleged that the House “spent like drunken sailors on shore leave” on the case.

Paxton’s impeachment created enormous strife between Patrick and former Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, who supported the impeachment effort. Earlier this month, Patrick wrote on social media that Phelan’s successor, Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, handed over “detailed expenditures” that Patrick then turned over to the State Auditor’s Office.

In a statement Friday, Patrick thanked Burrows for “his commitment to transparency” and slammed Phelan, saying the report showed he “frivolously wasted taxpayer funds for an ill-fated political gambit.”

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