HOUSTON — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will be deposed next month in an ongoing whistleblower lawsuit against him.
A Travis County judge set the deposition date for February 1. Three top aides for Paxton will also be deposed.
The order comes one day after Paxton moved to end the long-running whistleblower lawsuit by saying he would no longer contest the facts of the case and was prepared to accept any judgment, all of this so he could avoid being deposed.
Paxton is also currently facing criminal securities fraud charges, and the Austin American-Statesman reported in August that a federal grand jury had convened in San Antonio and called witnesses close to Paxton.
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"Anything that's publicly released now through the course of this investigation can be used in other kinds of trials, so that's partly why the attorney general wants to limit what gets out because the more that he puts on paper, the more he goes on the record with these things, the more that he's going to have to answer these questions and these things could be applied in other kinds of cases," said KHOU 11 political analyst Brandon Rottinghaus.
The whistleblower lawsuit was filed in 2020 by several people in the AG's office who claimed they were wrongfully terminated. A $3.3 million settlement was reached, but when Paxton asked the Texas House for money, an investigation began, ultimately leading to Paxton's impeachment trial, of which he was acquitted or.