{"id":14210,"date":"2016-04-22T02:49:10","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T02:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14210"},"modified":"2016-04-22T02:49:10","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T02:49:10","slug":"texas-ag-getting-ahead-of-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14210","title":{"rendered":"Texas AG getting ahead of himself"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/paxton.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13573\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/paxton-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"paxton\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/paxton-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/paxton-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/paxton.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ken Paxton plans to run for re-election in 2018 for a second term as Texas attorney general.<\/p>\n<p>Big deal? Sure it is. The Republican officeholder is facing criminal charges on a couple of fronts, which suggests to me that he&#8217;s getting way ahead of himself.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/04\/21\/despite-indictments-ken-paxton-plans-run-again\/\">https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/04\/21\/despite-indictments-ken-paxton-plans-run-again\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I get what he&#8217;s saying. He&#8217;s proclaiming his innocence of charges of securities fraud brought by a Collin County grand jury. What&#8217;s more, the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint against Paxton alleging the same thing.<\/p>\n<p>The man could go to jail if he&#8217;s convicted.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s getting too little attention here is the context of the indictment that brought the charges against the attorney general.<\/p>\n<p>The panel indicted Paxton for failing to report properly the compensation he received for providing investment advice for friends.<\/p>\n<p>As for the context, let&#8217;s remember a couple of critical points. Paxton represented Collin County in the Texas Legislature before running for AG in 2014. The grand jury\u00a0quite likely included individuals who voted for Paxton when he ran for statewide office. Collin County is a\u00a0reliably Republican area\u00a0just north of Dallas. It&#8217;s no bastion of liberals out to &#8220;get&#8221; GOP politicians.<\/p>\n<p>Thus,\u00a0it&#8217;s quite possible that the prosecutors who brought the complaint to the grand jury had the goods on Paxton and the grand jury agreed.<\/p>\n<p>Now, though, the attorney general&#8217;s flack\u00a0has announced he plans to declare officially his intention to seek re-election.<\/p>\n<p>The man&#8217;s got some work to do before he even <em>thinks<\/em> about his political future.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ken Paxton plans to run for re-election in 2018 for a second term as Texas attorney general. Big deal? Sure it is. The Republican officeholder is facing criminal charges on a couple of fronts, which suggests to me that he&#8217;s getting way ahead of himself. https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/04\/21\/despite-indictments-ken-paxton-plans-run-again\/ I get what he&#8217;s saying. He&#8217;s proclaiming his innocence &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14210\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Texas AG getting ahead of himself<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,14,18],"tags":[1064,2652,6130,4177,4653],"class_list":["post-14210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-political-news","category-state-news","tag-collin-county-grand-jury","tag-ken-paxton","tag-sec","tag-securities-fraud","tag-texas-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14210"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14212,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14210\/revisions\/14212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}