The Texas Senate, meeting Tuesday to hear from a secretive seven-senator committee that was directed to create the rules governing the impeachment trial of suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton, took no public action on trial plans despite several lengthy meetings in private and multiple recesses.
Senators emerged from a closed-door meeting shortly after 9 p.m. and recessed until 10 a.m. Wednesday, then followed up by recessing again, this time to 1 p.m. “as the Senate is working hard on rules,” said Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who made the motion to recess.
On the final day of the regular legislative session in late May, senators created the committee, gave it permission to conduct its business in private and directed it to return Tuesday to present rules of procedure to a “caucus of the Senate” — which typically meets outside of public view. On Monday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, indicated that the impeachment trial rules might not be made public until later this week.
The resolution that created the committee also gave Patrick the authority to set an impeachment trial to begin no later than Aug. 28.
Members of the committee have not publicly discussed their work, but that has not stopped Paxton’s allies and the House impeachment managers from lobbying for their preferred package of rules.
Paxton’s legal team, led by boisterous Houston attorney Tony Buzbee, has urged the committee to recommend rules that would allow the Senate to toss out the House-approved articles of impeachment, calling the procedure a “kangaroo court” because Paxton was not given the opportunity to defend himself.
The House managers, who have hired Texas legal giants Dick DeGuerin and Rusty Hardin to present the case against Paxton, sent the Senate committee 17 examples of rules that were used in past impeachment trials in Texas, including a recusal rule.
Patrick on Monday tamped down on talk about ending the impeachment trial before it can begin.
“We actually have to address the issues,” Patrick told Dallas radio host Mark Davis. “If not, they could keep Ken Paxton away from doing his job forever. … In general, we have to deal with it.”
The Senate committee’s decision on recusals will be closely watched because Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, is among the senators who could decide her husband’s fate.
Paxton’s legal team and the House managers have also quarreled about whether the trial should be public and how much discovery and preparation will be allowed.
Buzbee said in his first news conference as Paxton’s lead lawyer that the process of lining up witnesses and documents could take up to a year. And Paxton’s legal team argued in a memo to the committee that it should limit testimony to deposition statements, rather than allow live witnesses, which they said could turn the proceedings into “political theater.”
Source: www.texastribune.org
