Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is praising the state Supreme Court’s dismissal of an attempt to discipline his first assistant AG.
On December 31, the Supreme Court dismissed the State Bar of Texas’ lawsuit claiming Brent Webster violated the state’s rules of professional conduct by appearing on a lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election in four states. The rules of professional conduct prohibit lawyers from “engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.”
Paxton called the efforts by the State Bar of Texas’ Commission for Lawyer Discipline baseless and a “blatant case of politically motivated lawfare.”
Webster
| File photo
“After four years of lawfare and political retaliation, the Texas Supreme Court has ended this witch hunt against the leadership of my office,” Paxton said. “The Texas State Bar attempted to punish us for fighting to secure our national elections but we did not and will not ever back down from doing what is right.
“We have seen this playbook used against President Trump and other effective fighters for the American people, and I am pleased that this attempt to stop our work has been defeated.”
Paxton faces similar allegations from the State Bar in another case.
Paxton’s office says an original action on behalf of Texas in the U.S. Supreme Court was filed because of “genuine concerns of unconstitutional conduct by states during the 2020 election.” The U.S. Supreme Court didn’t hear the case because of a lack of standing.
Disagreeing with the merits of the suit, the State Bar commission claimed that Texas made misrepresentations and initiated disciplinary action. In September 2022, a lower state court dismissed the allegations against Webster. But the issue was appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.
Now, the Texas Supreme Court has sided with Webster and reinstated the district court’s dismissal of the commission's lawsuit for violating the separation of powers.
“The actions of the State Bar were disgraceful, ridiculous, and a disservice to the people of Texas,” Webster said in a press release from Paxton’s office. “Thankfully, with President Trump back in the White House and these attempts to wage legal warfare against us defeated, we can finally get back to making Texas and America great again without distraction.”
The State Bar commission said Webster had violated six points in the rules and filed a lawsuit after a grievance had been filed against him claiming he made “specious legal arguments and unsupported factual assertations.” That grievance originally was dismissed by the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, but the Board of Disciplinary Appeals reversed that decision and said a “possible violation” had occurred.
The lower district court dismissed the case based on separation of powers, and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that and said the separation of powers didn’t apply. Webster maintained the case wasn’t arguable because of sovereign immunity and/or separation of powers.
But Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled the case should be dismissed because it doesn't involve “direct scrutiny” because the statements were not made to a court or within a case being heard by a court.
If it had agreed to hear the case, the Supreme Court said it “would improperly invade the executive branch's prerogatives and risk the politicization and thus the independence of the judiciary.”