The man presiding over Paxton’s impeachment trial took $3 million from Paxton’s biggest backers. Paxton’s campaign also owed him $125,000.

What happened

The impeachment trial. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick presided over Paxton’s Senate trial, acting as its judge. Days after the Senate adopted trial rules, on June 27, 2023, Patrick received $1 million from Defend Texas Liberty PAC, and two days later a $2 million loan. The PAC had urged voters to tell senators to “end this witch hunt,” and is funded mainly by Tim Dunn and the Wilks family, ⁰¹ who with their groups had given Paxton more than $2.85 million since 2002. ⁰³

The money also ran the other way: in 2018, Patrick’s campaign lent Paxton’s campaign $125,000, which Paxton never reported repaying. Patrick said he “wasn’t even aware it was still on the books.” ⁰²

The Senate acquitted Paxton on Sept. 16, 2023, and Patrick attacked the House for bringing the case. ⁰⁴ He later said he saw “no reason” to return the PAC’s money. ⁰⁶ Defend Texas Liberty also gave to six senators who sat as jurors, none of whom voted to convict. ^{06 04}

Sealed testimony. Paxton gave sworn depositions in 2019 and 2022 in a securities-fraud lawsuit brought by the man who oversees his blind trust. Collin County District Judge Cynthia Wheless left the case untouched for more than four years, and the depositions remain sealed. ¹⁰ In December 2021, while the case was pending, Paxton’s personal lawyer Mitch Little, who represented the plaintiff in that case, and Little’s law firm and colleagues gave Wheless’s campaign $3,250. ⁰⁸

The appeals court. After the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled 8–1 in 2021 that Paxton could not prosecute election cases on his own, ⁰⁷ a PAC set up by the director of a fundraising firm that often worked for Paxton raised about $350,000, far more than any Court of Criminal Appeals candidate in a decade, including $50,000 from Dan Wilks, and helped defeat three judges in the majority in 2024. ⁰⁹

Why it matters

In an ordinary courtroom, a judge who took $3 million from a defendant’s chief backers, and was owed money by the defendant, would be expected to step aside. Patrick did neither. ^{01 02}

The judge who kept Paxton’s sworn testimony hidden took money from the lawyer on the other side of the same case, who was also Paxton’s personal lawyer. ^{08 10} And his donors’ money showed every Texas judge what ruling against Paxton can cost. ⁰⁹

What the sources show

The contributions come from campaign-finance filings reported by the Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle and from Texas Ethics Commission reports. ^{01 02 08} No court has found that any ruling was affected by the money.