New reporting from ProPublica found that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has taken “nearly 1,000 trips during his tenure, costing $3.3 million in security.” Yet only 138 of the trips and $553,000 in security costs could be verified as state business. More than 800 trips lack a documented business purpose.
ProPublica and The Texas Tribune reviewed “every publicly available document Paxton’s office says it possesses about his travel,” the article said, and found that only 1 in 6 of his trips listed a business purpose.
You’d think the state’s highest law enforcement officer would take special care to document the legitimacy of his expenses. But not Paxton! “Records detailing the purpose of Paxton’s visits to 36 states and 19 countries do not appear to exist in most cases,” reporter Zach Despart found. He works for both ProPublica and The Tribune.
This news comes as questions are still swirling about Paxton’s source(s) of income. The article reminds us that he still “has not answered questions about how he vastly increased his wealth as a public servant.” This is especially significant now that Paxton is running for a U.S. Senate seat.
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