The thing everyone is missing about Ken Paxton getting indicted by the DOJ

Over the weekend the news broke that the DOJ grand jury targeting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is deep into the indictment process, going so far as to put key witnesses in front of the grand jury. This does not guarantee that Paxton will be indicted. But when a federal grand jury gets this deep into the process, most of the time it results in indictment fairly soon thereafter.

This obviously good news was met with a lot of skepticism, and it took me a minute to figure out why. The answer comes down to simple confusion. Ken Paxton was indicted on state charges a very long time ago, but because the Texas system of justice is a corrupt joke, he still hasn’t gotten to trial years later. He was also more recently impeached, but because the Texas Republican legislature is also a corrupt joke, he was acquitted.

But these two things have nothing to do with a federal criminal indictment. This would be brought by the DOJ – no connection to the state government of Texas. If the DOJ goes through with indicting Paxton, his Republican pals in Texas won’t be able bail him out, because they’ll have no jurisdiction whatsoever.

Paxton is trying to further confuse everyone by hinting that he’ll run for Senate in 2026. This has led a number of people to mistakenly conclude that if he enters the race, he’ll magically be off the legal hook. But nothing works that way. Donald Trump got indicted by the DOJ while running for office. George Santos and Bob Menendez got indicted while in office. All three are going to prison after they’re convicted. There’s no such thing as magically avoiding indictment or prison by running for office. Paxton is just trying to distract everyone from what’s really happening to him. Besides, if the DOJ indicts Paxton in 2023 or even 2024, he’ll be in prison before the 2026 Senate race. So no, he won’t be candidate.

I want to be clear that there’s no guarantee the DOJ will indict Ken Paxton. It’s very rare for the DOJ to get this deep into the grand jury process and not bring an indictment, but it does occasionally happen. All I’m saying is that all signs point to Paxton likely being indicted, and fairly soon. And if the DOJ does indict him, there are no magic wands of any kind that can save him. He’ll be convicted in federal court and sent to prison, and that’ll be that.