Update: 12:40 p.m. with the judge granting Paxton’s request to quash the subpoena.
After fleeing his home with his wife to avoid being served with a subpoena the day before, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Tuesday that the process server is “lucky this situation did not escalate further or necessitate force.”
He said in a statement released on Twitter that he fled his home because “a strange man came onto my property at home, yelled unintelligibly, and charged toward me. I perceived this person to be a threat because he was neither honest nor upfront about his intentions.”
Citing the hazards of his job, he continued, “In light of the constant threats against me, for which dangerous individuals are currently incarcerated, I take a number of common sense precautions for me and my family’s safety when I’m at home. Texans do the same to protect themselves from threats, and many also exercise their Second Amendment rights to protect themselves and their families.
“… As leaders across America, from elected officials to Supreme Court Justices, face unprecedent (sic) threats of politically motivated violence, I believe this type of behavior utilized by radical activists is thoroughly disgusting and should be met with swift condemnation — not championed in the media.”
The subpoena, which the server ultimately left on the ground, stemmed from a legal battle over funding for abortions, according to an affidavit filed in federal court.
The subpoena was for a court hearing in Austin, but the federal judge Tuesday approved Paxton’s request to quash the subpoena, The Associated Press reported. Several abortion rights organizations are seeking a court order barring state officials from pursuing criminal charges against their employees should they resume funding out-of-state abortions for Texas residents.
Lawyers in Paxton’s office representing Texas in the case didn’t immediately respond outside regular business hours to a request for comment. But Paxton responded on Twitter after The Texas Tribune first reported the incident late Monday night.
Paxton said in his initial tweets that reporters are trying “to drum up another controversy” about him, calling it “a ridiculous waste of time.” He also raised reports of conservatives being attacked and how he was concerned for his family’s safety.
“This is a ridiculous waste of time and the media should be ashamed of themselves. All across the country, conservatives have faced threats to their safety — many threats that received scant coverage or condemnation from the mainstream media,” he wrote in his initial tweet responding to The Texas Tribune report.
This is a ridiculous waste of time and the media should be ashamed of themselves. All across the country, conservatives have faced threats to their safety — many threats that received scant coverage or condemnation from the mainstream media.
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) September 27, 2022
“It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family,” he wrote in a second response.
It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family.
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) September 27, 2022
Ernesto Martin Herrera, who was tapped to deliver the subpoena, said in the affidavit that he arrived at the Paxton residence in McKinney in Collin County just outside Dallas at 8:28 a.m. on Monday. A woman who identified herself as Angela Paxton answered the door and informed him that her husband was on the phone inside, but was in a “hurry to leave.”
Herrera returned to his car outside to wait, and more than an hour later he saw the garage door open and Paxton exiting his home. Herrera walked up the driveway to approach the state’s top attorney, and called his name.
“As soon as he saw me and heard me call his name out, he turned around and RAN (sic) back inside the house through the same door in the garage,” he said in the affidavit.
Minutes later, Herrera said, Angela Paxton exited the house and climbed inside of a black Chevrolet truck parked in the driveway. She opened the back passenger door before starting the truck and shortly thereafter Paxton himself exited the house and headed for the truck, ignoring Herrera who had begun to call his name.
The document states that the process server loudly announced that he was serving Paxton legal documents, and placed them in a visible location on the ground. Both Angela and Ken Paxton remained inside the truck and drove away, leaving the documents behind.
Ken Paxton, a Republican, has been under indictment on state securities fraud charges for more than five years and is also under investigation by the FBI for allegations that he misused his position to aid a prominent donor. He denies wrongdoing in both cases.
Paxton was indicted in 2015 on state securities fraud charges but is yet to face trial amid long delays over where the felony case should be heard and payment for the special prosecutors. The FBI is investigating Paxton over allegations of corruption that eight of Paxton’s own deputies leveled at him two years ago. The Texas state bar has also brought a lawsuit seeking to discipline Paxton for allegedly misleading the U.S. Supreme Court in his suit seeking to challenge Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Paxton has broadly denied wrongdoing and remained popular among GOP voters. He faces Democratic challenger Rochelle Garza, a first-time candidate and former ACLU attorney, in the November election.
“Texans deserve an AG who will uphold the law, not run from it,” Garza wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
No one should be above the law — certainly not the person who is supposed to be Texas’ top lawyer.
We need to vote criminally-indicted Ken Paxton out.
— Rochelle Garza (@RochelleMGarza) September 27, 2022
Angela Paxton, a Texas state senator, is also a Republican. Like her husband, she is seeking reelection on Nov. 8 and has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Abortion lawsuit
The case is Fund Texas Choice v. Paxton, 22-cv-00859, US District Court, Western District of Texas (Austin).
The subpoena ordered Paxton, a Republican, to testify in hearing Tuesday morning in a civil lawsuit that Texas abortion funds filed last month that seeks protections to resume financing people’s out-of-state travel for the procedure.
Most funds, which help women pay for an abortion or associated costs, paused their work just before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and triggered an effective abortion ban in Texas.
The lawsuit against Paxton and several local prosecutors argues that enforcing anti-abortion restrictions against the funds would violate the rights to free speech and travel.
In their suit, the eight abortion funds asked a federal judge to stop the officials from prosecuting their staff, donors or volunteers for their role in any abortions that occur outside the state.
“Abortion access is critical,” the filing said. The groups “all want to resume their prior activities as permitted by the United States Constitution and seek intervention from this Court to allow them (to) do so safely.”
Paxton, who is up for a third four-year term in November, has pledged to aggressively enforce the state’s anti-abortion bans. A patchwork of laws are in play, some of them conflicting.
A recent court decision revived a century-old abortion ban, and on Thursday a new law kicks in that makes performing the procedure a felony punishable by lengthy prison time and six-figure fines.
The lawsuit says Texas legislators have threatened that abortion funds and their donors will be prosecuted for murder, and asserted that pre-Roe laws can be applied retroactively to work the funds have already done.
“They cannot safely resume the exercise of their own constitutional rights until the threat of criminal prosecution for doing so is eliminated,” the suit said.
The Guttmacher Institute, which promotes reproductive health and rights, estimates the average drive is 250 miles one way. The burden falls hardest on communities of color, rural Texans and low-income women, who experts said already face the biggest obstacles in accessing abortion.
The only exception in the state’s abortion ban is to save the life of the pregnant person.
The North Texas Equal Access Fund and the Dallas-based Afiya Center both signed on to the lawsuit.
Assistant politics editor John Gravois and Austin bureau correspondent Allie Morris contributed to this report, which contains material from Bloomberg News and The Associated Press.
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https://collincountynewsonline.com/ken-paxton-man-serving-subpoena-lucky-situation-didnt-escalate-and-necessitate-force-the-dallas-morning-news/
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