Mediaite has the wrap up of the feud between conservative Texas AG Ken Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn who wants to be the next Senate Republican leader: Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) made his bid to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as the GOP Senate Leader official on Thursday, but first took a moment to spar with another Texas Republican, the state’s scandal-plagued attorney general Ken Paxton.
McConnell announced Wednesday that he would step down as Senate Minority Leader. He was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and became leader in 2006, making him the longest serving leader from either party in Senate history. Now 82, he has had a number of health scares in recent months and publicly clashed with former President Donald Trump, the presumptive presidential nominee who holds a seemingly unbreakable sway over a substantial section of the GOP base.
Cornyn has long been one of McConnell’s allies and top lieutenants since he joined the Senate after his 2002 election, serving as GOP Whip from 2013 to 2019 and chairing the National Republican Senatorial Committee for several years, overseeing fundraising and campaign efforts to re-elect incumbent Republican senators. Both McConnell and Cornyn have held their posts as the party’s power has waxed and waned, switching titles from Majority Leader and Majority Whip to Minority Leader and Minority Whip.
Paxton managed to survive an impeachment effort last year, being impeached by the Texas House but acquitted by the Senate over multiple counts of corruption and bribery related to a complex scheme involving one of his top donors, expensive renovations to the kitchen at his home, and efforts to conceal an extramarital affair with a former aide.
That’s far from the only messy scandal swirling around Paxton. “Even in the long, sordid history of Texas political scandals, Paxton stands out,” reported the Texas Tribune last September. “The accusations leveled against him in 21 years of public life ranged from felonious to farcical: that he duped investors to whom he sold stock, profited from inside information on a land deal, made false claims in court about the 2020 presidential election, and purloined another lawyer’s expensive pen.” The securities fraud matter in particular poses a substantial threat to not just Paxton’s political career, but his personal freedom, with the criminal indictment from over eight years ago finally heading to trial this April.
Cornyn, a former Texas Attorney General and Texas Supreme Court Justice himself, clearly had these seedy bullet points from Paxton’s résumé on his mind when he crafted his response.
“Hard to run from prison, Ken,” was the senator’s pithy quote tweet.