A stealthy ruling by a little-known court in Texas could hand the largest Republican state over to the Democrats in upcoming elections. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joins Glenn to expose the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is supposedly made up of 9 "Republican" members. But it recently voted 8-1 to take a major power away from the Texas Attorney General that falls directly in line with the work of George Soros to "reform" state judicial systems. So, what gives? Paxton explains what this decision could lead to and what Texans can do to push back before it's too late.
TranscriptBelow is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton. Welcome to the program, sir. How are you?
KEN: I'm doing well, thanks for having me back.
GLENN: Yeah. We have so many things to talk about. But I think the most important thing that I want to get to first, is the Court of Criminal Appeals. Texas is a weirdo state. And most states, I think 40 -- 48 of them, don't have this.
It's -- it's like a Supreme Court, if I'm not mistaken, but what is it its jurisdiction?
What do they do exactly?
KEN: We are a little weird. I think there's only one other state like us. That has a bifurcated system. Where some of the kids employ to the Texas Supreme Court. All the civil cases. And if you have on your final appeal, for a criminal case, it's the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
It's split. And most Texans are not aware of this nine member court that is all Republican.
And most Republicans, even the most educated, don't know who is on that court.
GLENN: So this is becoming very, very important. And especially -- and you will know this in really deep red states. States like Utah.
Just because, it says Republican.
Does not mean they're not Republican. In Texas, a lot of times, Democrats just switch to Republican because they know they can get elected with an R behind their name.
And then you also have these horrible Republicans, who are, you know, Republican in name only, as we know it to be RINOs. And that's who is really on -- there's some that are good.
But there's a few of these guys on this court. And it is stopping the attorneys general office now, from prosecuting any kind of election fraud.
Which is a new thing, is it not, Ken?
KEN: Yeah. So this statute was passed by the legislature legally, under their Constitutional for the past legislation, and direct the attorneys general to do whatever they wanted to do, and they did that in 1951. We prosecuted literally.
We had almost a thousand cases being prosecuted when they struck this down two years ago.
It was suddenly struck down two years ago. Was suddenly struck down out of the blue.
And they made the argument that it was unconstitutional, violation of the separation of powers, because I'm the executive branch, for me, as attorney general to be in court.
It's their right -- every court prior to them.
Every case. Really, every attorney general of the country, is violating the Constitution.
And has since the founding of our country. If this nine member court, that voted eight-one, out of the blue, struck this law down.
GLENN: How did that happen?
KEN: I think, honestly, it's nine members. Nobody knows who they are.
We have one good one, Kevin Uri. And they waited until two days after the filing deadline, two years ago, to run against them. So we could not put up candidates, the last time.
So they got two year passes, the company forget about it.
They nominated to have me out. And because George Soros is put DAs in the liberal counties, I believe he is funding, along with a group called Texas for Lawsuit Reform, funding these candidates.
To ensure that we can't prosecute voter fraud in Texas.
GLENN: Okay. So there were -- there's a three-pronged approach going on here in Texas to turn Texas blue.
The first thing is George Soros coming in, and getting the DAs and all the big counties.
The second thing is get rid of our attorney general, and get somebody that won't fight back.
And the third thing is the Court of Appeals.
And I could -- I could probably flip those last two. And make the Court of Appeals. And then coming after you. And trying to get you out.
As the -- as the -- the final step.
They've already gotten out the first step done.
They have the Court of Appeals thousand.
They failed on getting rid of you. But if this doesn't change in the Court of Appeals, you can't bring up any fraud charges, for anything, this Houston, Dallas, or wherever it is.
But these main DAs are the only ones that can bring up fraud charges.
Well, if they're Soros people, that's not going to happen.
KEN: And they are Soros people.
I watched Soros unelect Democrats that were prosecuting all kinds of different crimes.
He came in, and put progressives in, who won't prosecute much of anything, including -- so they've got that in place. I believe right now, they have Court of Criminal Appeals in place, and they are coming after me again.
I have another trial, just like Trump in April. That has been sitting there for 9 years, in Court of Criminal Appeals, out of my home county.
Which is Republican, to Harris County, which is Democrat.
And the Democratic judges, all the way up, obviously, Democratic jury, and why did they do that?
Because after nine years, they decided they still needed to get rid of me. Because the impeachment didn't work. The election -- the attempted knocking me out in the election. And even having the federal government come after me, none of that has worked.
GLENN: It is amazing to me, this legal warfare. And I heard about this, maybe eight years ago. That they were starting to looking into ways to go against anybody who stands against them with the court system. And I thought, well, that's interest. But, you know, we have judges and we have juries and everything else.
It doesn't matter. If they pick the court, it doesn't matter.
KEN: That's exactly right. And think of for this. The criminal case. They moved me into Harris County, where my stances are much less at winning. And especially, if we have a democratic jury pool. And democratic whys. And then the Court of Criminal Appeals, has the final say.
I would say, my chances aren't very good.
I think they've done the same thing to Trump. They've put him in places like New York or Fulton county, where the process is slanted against you, heavily. And it's also obviously very expensive. Trump has resources that I obviously don't have.
That's the other thing, they try to drain you financially so you cannot run. And unfortunately, it's not just Democrats. This is the Karl Roves, you know, slash Bush wing of our party.
And it involved the Dick Weeklies of the world, the Texas Lawsuit Reform.
And other liberal groups that seem like they're Republican, but they're not -- they're not on our side.
GLENN: So the Texas for lawsuit reform, correct me if I'm wrong. Used to be, conservative.
It was a conservative group. But now the billionaires are involved, and Dick Weekley is one of them.
He's a construction guy, if I'm not mistaken.
And he and Karl Rove, and another guy, gosh, what's his name.
Dennis --
KEN: Calabrese.
GLENN: Calabrese. These three kind of really make the meat of the Texas lawsuit reform. One goes out, raises a lot of money.
A couple of them do actually. The other guy is the strategist.
And if I'm not mistaken, didn't Calabrese -- didn't he go -- he was part of the no bail action, wasn't he?
KEN: Yeah. So he was helping to work -- I think it was the trimming foundation.
Arnold's Foundation. Very progressive group on criminal matters. He was working with them, until he was accused of tax evasion.
Went to federal prison. But then he also was sued for taking some of their money. And there was a judgment against him, for I think eight and a half million dollars.
And then suddenly, that judgment gets paid and he's back with Dick Weekley, and Texas for Lawsuit Reform.
GLENN: Who paid that eight and a half million dollar judgment?
KEN: I have no idea.
GLENN: Maybe it was Hunter Biden's art friend.
KEN: You can guess.
GLENN: Yeah. Okay. So he goes back to work, now he's for embezzlement. He's a criminal for embezzlement. He was part of the move to get all of these -- all of the bails dropped.
Why is a so-called conservative group and conservative like Dick Weekley. Why are they bringing him in?
KEN: Well, that's a good question. Except, if you look at where they're headed.
They've focused on taking out Republicans. They tend to fund now -- they'll refund Republicans.
But they'll give them so much money they're beholden to them. And they're not necessarily a conservative group anymore.
Their original purpose was to stop -- and now they've branched into all kinds of things. They're supporting -- they're putting millions of dollars behind the speaker, who is controlled by the Democrats.
And then they -- they give all of -- all of his people, you know, millions of dollars. And they control the Texas legislature. And it ends up not representing the voters.
Because now the voters, they don't even need their money. The House members don't even need their money.
So much of it is coming from Texas for lawsuit reform, and a group called ART, Associated Republicans of Texas, which Karl Rove is -- so they all work together.
GLENN: Karl Rove, we know him. Quite well.
He's -- all right. So who are the judges that are going up for election this year?
And this is going to be a tough up. Because nobody knows what the Court of Criminal Appeals is.
When you look at judges, you don't know -- you don't know how -- who these judges are. Nine out of ten times, and people will look, and they will go I don't know.
It's a Republican.
It's an independent. I don't know.
I'll vote for -- and you just guess. So you have three people coming up.
And Texans have got to know these names.
KEN: That's exactly right.
I think this is the most important election I've ever been involved in. Even in my election.
These three judges. We can't turn this court. We will not be able to prosecute border fraud. And we will be Georgia.
We will be Arizona.
We will be Wisconsin.
We will have the same result.
I was able to stop that with my great team last night.
But this is where we're headed in the next couple of years.
If no one cares about voter fraud, actually, gets to prosecute it.
So Gina Parker.
The three people we want to elect. Gina Parker, Lee Finley, and David Schenck.
I'm going to repeat them one more time.
Gina Parker. David Schenck and Lee Finley. And it starts -- voting starts February 20th. This coming Tuesday. Early voting.
GLENN: Oh, jeez.
KEN: It's really critical, that people on your show, from Texas, spread the word.
And if you're not from Texas, realize, if we don't hold on to Texas. I mean, we are in trouble nationally. We can't win elections nationally.
GLENN: This is the number one thing that people say to me, you know, Glenn.
If we can't go after voter fraud.
If we can't clean it up. And I mean clean it up on our side, if there's any.
And their side.
Just fair voting.
If we can't prosecute this. If we can't go after it. Then we have no trust in the elections. And how do you have a republic?
Well, you don't. You don't.
In Texas, this is the solution to this.
If you can get three people. Gina Parker. Lee Finley. And David Schenck.
If you can get those three on to the board of criminal appeals, Court of Criminal Appeals, there's a chance that this thing could be overturned.
And the attorney general, didn't you have almost 400 cases, of voter fraud here in Texas, going on?
KEN: So we had over 600 counts that we were prosecuting, at the time they struck down.
All those got dismissed. We had a 392 investigation. Had to be halted because of this decision, out of the blue with no -- totally surprising us. So, no, we're not prosecuting. There's not a single case, in Texas, that is being prosecuted. Not a single voter fraud case by a single DA in this state. Maybe there's one. Maybe there's two. I can guarantee, you this is not being prosecuted in Texas anymore.
GLENN: God, it's bad. That's really bad. That's really bad.
KEN: So we can fix it.
If this election goes the right way, we'll still be down 5-4. But we'll be sending the message to the legislature, fix this. And the Court of Criminal Appeals will realize, we're coming to get the next one, if they don't fix this.
GLENN: Well, the same money behind these guys, if this is accurate, would be the people behind the Speaker of the House who is just a nightmare. A nightmare.
KEN: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. You will see money spent on these races for the first time, by the other side.
Because they know that we're getting the word out. So you'll see these TV ads, supporting these incumbent, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judges. I've never seen money spent in these races. But we will see it.
And Texas for Lawsuit Reform. And other groups affiliated with them, are going to be involved.
GLENN: Stu, we need something like a jingle for Gina Parker, Lee Finley, and David Schenck. We need something -- I don't know how.
I don't know how you make those names stick. We need a jingle that we can play every day.
KEN: I'll work on it.
GLENN: Yeah. Okay. Good. You'll work on it. We'll work on it too, Ken.
I don't know how. As an audience, can somebody come up with something catchy that helps people remember. Because you have a week. You have a week to do this.