Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is being threatened with a lawsuit related to what he did on the day of the Capitol Riot. He has four days to turn over records of his communications on that day.
The Travis County district attorney on Thursday found that Attorney General Ken Paxton violated the state's open records law by not turning over his communications from last January when he visited Washington, D.C., for a pro-Trump rally that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Jackie Wood, director of public integrity and complex crimes at the Travis County District Attorney's Office, agreed with the journalists and hand-delivered her ruling in a letter to Paxton's office on Thursday. The letter said Paxton's office had broken Texas open records laws by withholding or failing to keep communications that would be releasable under the law.
The complaints stem from decisions by Paxton's office to claim attorney-client privilege to prevent the disclosure of every single email and text sent by the attorney general in the days surrounding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Separately, the U.S. House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 requested communications between Trump and Paxton in August.