Angela Paxton banned from voting in husband’s impeachment trial: report
New Texas Senate rules officially barred Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's wife, State Senator Angela Paxton (R-TX), from voting during her husband's upcoming impeachment trial scheduled for September 5, CNN reports.
This comes after the Republican state lawmaker voted Wednesday "against a resolution to bar spouses of people on trial for impeachment," saying in a Thursday statement, "These same rules prohibit me from saying more about the proceedings."
Per CNN, the resolution states, "A member of the court who is the spouse of a party to the court of impeachment is considered to have a conflict pursuant to… the Texas Constitution."
Texas House Republicans approved 20 articles of impeachment against Paxton last month, which according to The Texas Tribune, "exposed long-simmering and bitter divisions within the Texas Republican Party — infighting that has hindered the ability to unite behind a single vision for the state’s future despite a generation of political dominance."
Although the recently established rules by the state Senate included "barring the spouses of members who are the subject of impeachment proceedings from voting," according to CNN, however; the senator is still allowed to attend the trial.
The attorney general's lawyer, Tony Buzbee, deemed the trial a "sham" Thursday, saying, "Now that the Senate has adopted the rules, we look forward to proving every count of this sham impeachment is baseless."
READ MORE: Ken Paxton impeachment fight exposes deep fissures among Texas GOP
CNN's full report is available at this link.
