By: Senator Bob Hall
The 2023 attempt to impeach Attorney General Warren Kenneth Paxton was doomed from the start for multiple reasons; not the least of which was the failure of the House to follow the wellestablished and time-tested principle of “due process.” Specifically; Investigation goal: instead of seeking TRUTH and JUSTICE they sought IMPEACHMENT. No testimony was required or allowed to be given under oath. No cross exam was allowed for any witness Second-, third- and fourth-hand hearsay was accepted without question. No House member was allowed to hear direct testimony. Full house required to vote after hearing only hearsay summaries by House Managers.
Had the House simple required all testimony be given under oath as required by law and witnesses allowed to be cross examined by the defense the House would most likely have reached the same conclusion as the Senate because they would have seen that there was insufficient evidence to convict on “probable cause” much less “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Clearly, the House goal was IMPEACHMENT. Their goal should have been TRUTH and JUSTICE. Thus, the House failed in their job of requiring EVIDENCE to guide them to the right goal.
After reviewing thousands of pages of documents and over 40 hours of testimony, it is clear that the prosecution could not produce any meaningful evident worthy of an impeachment conviction. The failure to cross examine under oath, led the House to rely on half truths, misleading information, and hearsay. Even if the House had been interested in seeking TRUTH and JUSTICE, they would not have been able to do so.
As in the words of Representative John Smithee when he spoke in opposition to the impeachment motion in the House, “You’ve heard this compared to a grand jury proceeding, and in some ways it’s like a grand jury proceeding, and in other ways it is not. But I can tell you this, no grand jury can legitimately indict any individual or any potential criminal defendant without evidence. You can’t indict without evidence, PERIOD. What you’re being asked to do today is to impeach without evidence. It is all rumor, it is all innuendo, it is all speculation, and is all things we may speculate to be true, but we don’t have what is defined or what qualifies as evidence in any court at law, not only in Texas, not only in the United States, but in most developed countries in the world.
