Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, one of the state’s most vocally anti-LGBTQ elected leaders, is facing a possible investigation by federal authorities after seven of his top staff members asked the feds to step in and  investigate Paxton over allegations of improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential crimes, according to the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV, which broke the story early Saturday evening, Oct. 3.

In a one-page letter to the Office of the Attorney General’s director of human resources, which the Austin newspaper and television standard got a copy of on Saturday, the “seven executives in the upper tiers of the office said that they are seeking the investigation into Paxton ‘in his official capacity as the current Attorney General of Texas,'” the Statesman reports.

The letter (see below) was signed by Paxton’s first assistant, Jeff Mateer, who resigned suddenly at the end of the day Friday, Oct. 2, Mateer’s deputy Ryan Bangert and James Blake Brickman, Lacey Mase, Darren McCarty, Mark Penley and Ryan Vassar,  all of whom are deputy attorneys general overseeing the divisions of policy, administration, civil litigation, criminal investigations and legal counsel.

The seven wrote, “We have a good faith belief that the attorney general is violating federal and/or state law including prohibitions related to improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses.”

Paxton’s office on Saturday issued a statement claiming the seven were just trying to “impede an ongoing investigation into criminal wrongdoing by public officials including employees of this office. Making false claims is a very serious matter and we plan to investigate this to the fullest extent of the law.”

On Sunday, Patrick Svitek, primary political correspondent for the Texas Tribune, Paxton’s political advisor Jordan Berry confirmed that he has resigned from his position, as well.

Paxton is already under indictment on three criminal charges. On July 28, 2015, less than a year after he was first elected Texas AG in November 2014, a grand jury indicted him on two counts of securities fraud, a first-degree felony, and one count of failing to register with state securities regulators, a third-degree felony. Paxton has spent the five-plus years since working to get the charges either dismissed and his trials delayed.

Paxton has worked tirelessly since his election to interfere with LGBTQ equality. He has opposed marriage equality, even after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Obergefell case, which he called a “lawless ruling.” He has backed efforts to strip away LGBTQ rights and protections through “religious liberty” laws and he has backed efforts to undermine protections for transgender people including proposed laws that would have prohibited transgender people from using the proper public restrooms.

Jeff Mateer, Paxton’s now-former first assistant who was the highest-ranking OAG employee to sign the letter, is also a well-known homophobe, to the point where after being nominated to a federal judgeship by Trump, the nomination was withdrawn because of his extremist views on LGBTQ people. He even once called transgender children “part of Satan’s plan.”

— Tammye Nash