A few weeks ago, Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas, gave an interview to Y’all-itics, the popular political podcast (Episode 15) and spoke candidly about numerous topics, one of which was the criminal case still outstanding against him in Collin County.
Not about the facts
We’re not going to rehash the facts of the matter except to say that it was a grand jury of his peers which indicted him based on evidence of securities fraud presented by prosecutors at the time five years ago. Maybe the evidence was thin or poor or whatever, but we don’t know and can’t comment on that.
Grand jury indictments happen all the time to lots of Texans who run afoul of the law. But, the difference here is that unlike Attorney General Paxton, those individuals don’t get the opportunity nor the bully pulpit to allege the charges are “political,” as Attorney General Paxton has done, or have their allegations of unfairness be taken seriously by the people of Texas.
Speedy trial necessary
A trial obviously needs to be held to settle the matter and Attorney General Paxton is upset he hasn’t had his yet. Well, he should be as it is guaranteed under the Constitution. He also lamented on Y’all-itics that the case is “expensive and it’s unfair. No one should have to live with this over their heads for five years.”
We wholeheartedly agree.
Ortho dentists in same boat for years
It is ironic but the Office of Attorney General is doing the same thing to five Medicaid orthodontic dental practices that have been “living with allegations of Medicaid fraud over their heads,” dating back to 2011. That’s nine long, expensive years and still going.
In fact, in December of 2014, these dental practices had their OIG cases placed in the hands of the Office of Attorney General for the exact reason that they wanted to go to trial to prove their innocence. After all, two of them, Antoine Dental Center and Harlingen Family Dentistry, had won their payment hold cases with no evidence of Medicaid fraud being found. But these practices felt they couldn’t get a fair shake from former disgraced Inspector General Doug Wilson and his former disgraced deputy Jack Stick who the state both replaced shortly afterwards. Little did these practices know that the new IG would end up settling out all the other cases so that the agency could get back to square one.
So, today, these five cases still languish along with Attorney General Paxton’s case.
We hope this will change for all concerned. We are interested in due process. We want to see justice done.
AG Paxton needs to go to trial as soon as possible. He is just biding his time
It’s unfair to Texans to have an AG putting off possible felony convictions while in office. He should step down from his office until his court cases are resolved.