“In the interest of time for your honor and our jurors, and because Attorney General Ken Paxton has nothing to hide, we’re going to withdraw our objection and save us a lot of time,” Paxton’s lawyer Tony Buzbee said to open the proceedings.
Paxton’s legal team had reportedly been set to object to testimony they felt was protected under attorney-client privilege. If successful, it would have kept a lot of key testimony from being included in the trial. It was more than mildly surprising. Opting not to challenge the privileged nature of witness testimony, Buzbee, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and lead prosecutor Rusty Hardin engaged in a back-and-forth to clarify what had just happened.
At one point, Buzbee, already seeming exasperated, said to Patrick, “How much more clear can we make it?”
Basically, Buzbee was just letting the Senate know he would be objecting, but he would choose to do so only for testimony he deemed hearsay or irrelevant. And object, he did.
The first witness of the day was the same one who ended the first day of the trial, Paxton’s former first assistant attorney general, Jeff Mateer.
With Hardin deploying his signature, folksy demeanor, Mateer was asked about a pivotal time period spanning the summer and fall of 2020 when his place on Paxton’s team went from solid to nonexistent. At the heart of Mateer’s concerns, he testified, was the man connected to many of Paxton's hot-water headlines in recent years, Austin real estate investor and Paxton campaign contributor Nate Paul.
In multiple replies to Hardin’s questioning, Mateer recalled his concerns over his former boss’ relationship with Paul. At one point, Mateer explained he was frustrated by Paxton’s “involving himself with the affairs of Nate Paul.”
Even after addressing his concerns over using the resources of the Office of the Attorney General for Paul-related legal matters to Paxton, Mateer testified, Paxton continued to make Paul’s business official OAG business.
Mateer’s testimony and whistleblower status is notable in that he’s a bona fide conservative Republican. Since the Texas House overwhelmingly voted to impeach Paxton, the AG has been vocal that the decision was the result of Republicans he believed were acting as moderates or even as Democrat operatives, to a certain degree. Such cannot be said of his former right-hand man, who has served as general counsel for the First Liberty Institute, a Plano-based right-wing religious advocacy group. During his Wednesday testimony, Mateer expressed pride in how quickly he and the OAG helped Texas reopen following the COVID-19 shutdowns of 2020. Anyone looking to paint Mateer as a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only) will likely fall short.
“In the interest of time for your honor and our jurors, and because Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton has nothing to hide, we’re going to withdraw our objection and save us a lot of time.” – Tony Buzbee, lawyer for Ken Paxton
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After detailing what he believes to be Paxton’s dishonest wrangling in 2020 to hire outside attorney Brandon Cammack, a lawyer who would allegedly be used to serve the interests of Paul after the real estate investor’s home and office was raided by authorities in 2019, Hardin asked Mateer about Paxton’s alleged marriage infidelity.
“Unfortunately, it is relevant,” Mateer said of the affair when Hardin first asked him about it.
Mateer testified that in 2018, both Paxton and his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, gathered OAG staff together to inform them of the affair and to say that it was over. Mateer said the AG appeared apologetic and that he and other staff agreed to accept his apology and move on from the news. But Mateer said he later determined Ken Paxton had continued or reignited the affair when, well after the staff meeting when Paxton addressed the topic, he learned that Paul had hired the alleged mistress.
“Why would General Paxton jeopardize all this great work that we had been doing at the Office of the Attorney General?” Mateer recalled wondering to himself during his testimony Wednesday. “Why would he be engaged in these activities on behalf of that person?”
Mateer said later that after going to the FBI with his concerns over Paxton’s behavior, he resigned on Oct. 2, 2020. He explained in his testimony that he considered Paxton a friend but that he also believed “Mr. Paxton was engaged in conduct that was immoral, unethical, and I had a good-faith belief that it was illegal.”
Shortly before lunch, Buzbee began his cross-examination of Mateer by attacking the idea that Mateer had considered himself and Paxton friends prior to his resignation. Buzbee was pointed as he suggested that Mateer wasn’t much of a friend to Paxton since he reported him to the FBI before he resigned.
Buzbee’s bold, aggressive style of questioning was the opposite of what Mateer had experienced from Hardin’s more genial, conversational style. Known for his flashiness, Buzbee projected his volume rather loudly toward the witness stand when asking Mateer about the specifics of the timeline between learning of Cammack’s activities on behalf of the OAG and reporting Paxton to the FBI.
Mateer seemed a bit flustered and fumbled his words during Buzbee’s cross. When Buzbee asked about text messages that Mateer received around the time in question, the former first assistant attorney general, who had spoken calmly and smoothly earlier, needed multiple attempts to speak the words “zero inbox policy” when explaining why he deleted text messages from his days working for Paxton.
Buzbee’s pressure on Mateer grew stronger as he asked Mateer whether it was legal for the first assistant attorney general to send out official communication with the name of the attorney general removed from the letterhead, something Buzbee said Mateer had done. Mateer didn't recall having done that, and wasn’t sure if it would’ve been illegal or not.
“I thought you were a rule of law guy,” Buzbee asked theatrically. “I thought that’s what you told us, ‘I’m a rule of law guy.’”
“I am a rule of law guy,” Mateer replied sheepishly.
Buzbee was highly active with objections during Hardin’s questioning earlier in the morning, but Hardin had little to say during Buzbee’s pre-lunch turn with Mateer, offering only a few objections that might slow Buzbee’s momentum. Well after the second half of the day began, Hardin did speak up more often with objections and at one point claimed that he held his tongue “about seven other times.”
Buzbee needled Mateer by suggesting the House’s case against Paxton isn’t very strong since he was the first witness to testify against Paxton although, Buzbee said, Mateer had played an approving part in the key point of the first article of impeachment by signing off on Paxton's having OAG employees intervene in a lawsuit between the nonprofit Mitte Foundation and Nate Paul.“I am a rule of law guy." – Jeff Mateer, former first assistant attorney general under Ken Paxton
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Getting Testy In the Afternoon
After the hearing began following a lunch break, Buzbee returned to the topic of Brandon Cammack’s hiring, one that Mateer had opposed. The defense attorney noted that Mateer had met with some high-priced attorneys for the available outside counsel position, possibly there were people he would rather see get the job more than Cammack. This seemed to be part of a move by Buzbee to characterize Mateer as a bitter former employee rather than a law-abiding whistleblower.
As the afternoon meandered on, Mateer seemed to stand up a bit more forcefully to Buzbee’s bold approach. When Buzbee suggested that $800 per hour was too much for the state to spend on such a position, since many senators in the room likely charged only $500 per hour for their legal services, Mateer perked up and asked, “What’s your rate?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Buzbee replied.
The deference that Mateer had shown towards Buzbee in the late morning had completely vanished by the afternoon.
“Can I finish?” asked Mateer when answering a question about the process his office undertook when hiring outside counsel for “potential crimes that were being committed.”
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick listens to testimony during Ken Paxton's impeachment trial.
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“Take it easy,” replied Buzbee with a slight smile.
“You’re trying to misstate things,” Mateer shot back, not with a smile.
“Slow down here,” Lt. Gov. Patrick interjected.
The gamesmanship over the course of the day appeared in different ways, including with evidence. On a couple of occasions, Buzbee began reading from an exhibit, only to have Hardin object, saying that the exhibit wasn’t one of the many that both sides had agreed could be introduced at the start of the day. Buzbee insisted it had been agreed to in both cases, with one, a “forensic report,” in the late afternoon being debated heartily before it was finally admitted after a 10-minute break.
To try to undermine Mateer’s status as a Paxton friend, Buzbee returned to the topic of the letterhead around 3:30 p.m. when he presented the court with an official letter to Cammack on Oct. 1, 2020. The letter was signed by Mateer and did not include Paxton’s name on the official OAG letterhead. Buzbee raised his voice as he asked Mateer who would’ve altered the sheet, but Mateer tempered the exchange by offering, “I don’t think this letter was altered. It does have the seal [of Texas Attorney General].”
Buzbee revisited another hot-button from earlier in his cross examination when he asked Mateer when he had hired Johnny Sutton to be his personal attorney. Previously in the day, Mateer testified that he had recommended Sutton for a $50,000 outside counsel position, but Sutton did not end up getting the job. Mateer said he retained Sutton during his last week at the OAG, when he reported Paxton to the FBI.
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Buzbee said. “You’re telling us that you hired and retained Johnny Sutton while you were still at the office?”
Buzbee suggested an illicit partnership by connecting Mateer's hiring of Sutton as his own personal lawyer while he was also suggesting Sutton for the $50,000 position. Mateer reminded Buzbee he was a part of the group that decided against hiring Sutton for the outside counsel job, so Sutton did not receive any state funds.
After asking whether Mateer had any knowledge of Nate Paul assisting the Paxtons with home renovations, and Mateer answering that he didn't have any firsthand knowledge, Buzbee passed the witness back to Hardin around 4 p.m. At that point Hardin led Mateer through a few questions reinforcing the witness’s belief that Paxton had acted unethically and illegally.
A New Witness
Shortly after 4 p.m. Hardin introduced Ryan Bangert, Paxton’s former deputy first assistant attorney general, and asked him a series of questions to establish his Christian and conservative Republican bona fides. Bangert currently serves as a senior vice president for Alliance Defending Freedom, which claims to be “the world's largest legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, the sanctity of life, marriage and family, and parental rights.”
When asked how he would respond should anyone call him a RINO, Bangert responded with a bit of a chuckle and said, “That would be remarkable, and I can’t imagine that having any basis in reality.”
Hardin asked Bangert about his knowledge of Nate Paul, someone who hadn't been brought up much during Buzbee's cross-examination of Mateer. In an almost unimaginably smooth manner, Bangert spoke authoritatively about his time working for the AG, which included what he said was a point when Paxton acted beneficially towards Paul, including an instance where he said Paxton personally asked him to intervene in the Mitte Foundation lawsuit.
As the day's testimony crawled closer to quitting time, Buzebee, like Paxton, was not present for the end of the day's testimony. Bangert testified that was the third time in six months he had been asked by Paxton to review a case involving Paul.
"I was becoming increasingly concerned," said Bangert. Later, Bangert explained more instances where Paxton directed him to work on a Nate Paul-related case and added, "I was sick of dealing with Nate Paul."
