AUSTIN, Texas (NewsNation) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will file criminal complaints against the 12 state representatives who led his impeachment trial, he announced Monday.
Paxton claims the representatives violated a new state law — House Bill 611 — threatening him by publishing his personal information, including his home address, in a document released last week.
The document was released by state House impeachment managers nearly three weeks after the attorney general was acquitted on all 16 articles of impeachment in the state Senate. The piles of evidence released were deemed inadmissible during the 10-day trial.
“The impeachment managers clearly have a desire to threaten me with harm when they released this information last week,” Paxton said in a statement. “I’m imploring their local prosecutors in each individual district to investigate the criminal offenses that have been committed.”
Paxton said he will file the complaints in each of the managers’ eight home counties. NewsNation’s affiliate KXAN reached out Monday morning to all 12 state representatives for comment as well as visited their offices at the Texas Capitol.
Rep. Andrew Murr, the Junction Republican who served as chairman of the board of managers, released a statement firing back at Paxton:
“Growing up on a ranch, I was taught to keep the manure on the outside of my boots. Mr. Paxton’s baseless threats about filing criminal complaints are horse manure, and they are filling his boots full.”
House Bill 611 created a new criminal offense for doxing when it passed the legislature earlier this year.
The law states, “A person commits an offense if the person posts on a publicly accessible website the residence address or telephone number of an individual with the intent to cause harm or a threat of harm to the individual or a member of the individual ’s family or household.”
According to its language, violating this law could result in a Class B misdemeanor charge.
The hundreds of pages of documents provide more information about the Paxtons’ home renovations central to one of the impeachment articles, as well as a behind-the-scenes transcript that details why Laura Olson — the woman Paxton is accused of having an extramarital affair with — ultimately didn’t testify after being called to the witness stand.
Brian Smith, a political science professor at St. Edward’s University in Austin, noted the information posted online last week was later redacted. Despite that, Smith said this fits into the promise Paxton made after his acquittal.
“The attorney general said he was going to go after the people,” Smith said, “and this is one of the things he’s doing is making it very difficult for them politically by going after the House managers.”
It remains unclear whether any district attorneys will take up Paxton’s criminal complaints and consider charges against the lawmakers.
Paxton’s announcement, though, came on the first day of the third special legislative session. Smith said the timing could further deepen divides among state leaders and upend efforts to pass the priorities handpicked by the governor.
The Associated Press and KXAN contributed to this report.