Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: More than two years ago, members of Purdue Pharma's Sackler family,
Speaker 2: who earned billions of dollars from the sale of oxyconton
Speaker 2: and other opioids, were questioned in Congress about their company's
Speaker 2: role in the deadly opioid epidemic. David and Kathy Sackler
Speaker 2: expressed regret over the crisis, but did not admit any wrongdoing.
Speaker 3: I want to express my family's deep sadness about the
Speaker 3: opioid crisis. Oxyconton has a medicine that Purdue intended to
Speaker 3: help people.
Speaker 2: I know the loss of any family member or loved
Speaker 2: one is terribly painful, and nothing is more tragic than
Speaker 2: the loss of a child. And now the Second Circuit
Speaker 2: Court of Appeals has found that the billionaire Sacklers can
Speaker 2: be shielded against future opioid lawsuits as part of the
Speaker 2: company's bankruptcy, even though they did not file for bankruptcy themselves.
Speaker 2: This clears the way for a settlement of thousands of
Speaker 2: legal claims, where the Sacklers will pay six billion dollars,
Speaker 2: about half of their fortune, and give up ownership of Purdue,
Speaker 2: joining me is John Coffee, a professor Columbia Law School
Speaker 2: and a business law expert. Jack tell us about the
Speaker 2: Second Circuit decision and some of the background.
Speaker 1: What you should understand is, in the traditional bankruptcy case,
Speaker 1: under something called Chapter eleven, only the claims of the
Speaker 1: bankrupt debtor are resolved. No one else gets a release.
Speaker 1: This is a case evolving a release to a third party,
Speaker 1: the Sackler family. That did not normally happen in bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: but there has been a very new trend. There is
Speaker 1: a case involving the Boy Scouts that releases were given
Speaker 1: to all the Boy Scout leaders as well as to
Speaker 1: the Boy Scout entity which is bankrupt. The Boy Scouts
Speaker 1: were also overwhelmed by thousands of involving sexual misconduct. Exceptions
Speaker 1: have occurred, but they were pretty rare. Now, what happened
Speaker 1: in this case is the bankruptcy judge, looking at an
Speaker 1: unending lifetime of litigation with Purdue Pharma and its oxycotton climbs,
Speaker 1: did approve a settlement that gave a release to all
Speaker 1: the Sacklers. The district court then reversed him and said
Speaker 1: there was no support under the bankruptcy laws for giving
Speaker 1: this kind of release, all right, The second Circuit heard
Speaker 1: the appeal, and now things get a little strange. The
Speaker 1: Second Circuit sat on this for over a year after
Speaker 1: it was argued in the Second Circuit, but usually be
Speaker 1: out with the case in a couple of months. So
Speaker 1: they obviously hit some difficulties with it. And there is
Speaker 1: a concurring descending opinion that says this case is very
Speaker 1: unusual and we shouldn't do this again. Unfortunately, it's very
Speaker 1: likely that they will do it again, because everyone plans.
Speaker 1: Some people who plan bankruptcies are now going to plan
Speaker 1: to have a major contribution by the controlling shareholders and
Speaker 1: give them third party releases. You see, in this kind
Speaker 1: of case, you could sue not only the corporation Perdue Pharma,
Speaker 1: but the Sackler family, which had made all the decisions
Speaker 1: about how to market and sell oxy cotton effectively to
Speaker 1: the masses and not just to a very limited audience.
Speaker 1: So we have a problem with whether or not third
Speaker 1: party releases will become common bankruptcies because the debtor and
Speaker 1: its lawyers can plan these things in advance and will
Speaker 1: try to maximize their releases.
Speaker 2: Are courts too eager to get a settlement in a
Speaker 2: bankruptcy proceeding.
Speaker 1: Bankruptcy courts and bankruptcy law are having a particular problem
Speaker 1: with mass torts. Purdue Pharma was oxy cotton. There's another
Speaker 1: case it's in the courts a lot, getting a lot
Speaker 1: of attention, which is Johnson and Johnson and its problem
Speaker 1: with talcum powder. Billions of dollars of claims have been
Speaker 1: raised on the grounds the talcum powder causes women to
Speaker 1: get a variety of cancers. And that district court approved
Speaker 1: such a settlement allowing Johnson and Johnson to take all
Speaker 1: of their liabilities and all their subsidiaries, put it in
Speaker 1: one subsidiary only, and then immediately put that subsidiary into bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: District court allowed, that bankruptcy court allowed there, but the
Speaker 1: Second Circuit has reversed it, and Don Johnson and Johnson
Speaker 1: is suggesting they may go to the Supreme Court. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying there's a general pattern here of bankruptcy courts
Speaker 1: being very interested in getting a settlement because they don't
Speaker 1: want to spend a lifetime on one case. And what
Speaker 1: made the Sackler case so attractive to the bankruptcy court
Speaker 1: and ultimately to the Second Circuit is that the Sackler
Speaker 1: family ultimately sweetened the settlement by adding six billion of
Speaker 1: their own money. Now, I have to tell you that
Speaker 1: six billion of their own money was money they took
Speaker 1: out of Purdue Farmer in the last days. For the
Speaker 1: last ten years, Perdue Farmer was run basically recognizing that
Speaker 1: it was going to fail, and the Sacklers try to
Speaker 1: take all the money they could out of it. But
Speaker 1: adding six billion to the pool was a tremendous difference,
Speaker 1: and I think that had seduced the courts into accepting
Speaker 1: an unusual provision, which, if it's generalized, is going to
Speaker 1: work to the disadvantage of the creditors the claimants under
Speaker 1: the long term.
Speaker 2: I just want to clarify this. The family demanded they
Speaker 2: get full immunity from all civil legal claims before they
Speaker 2: would settle, even though Perdue had filed for bankruptcy and
Speaker 2: the Sacklers as individuals had not.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what is unusual. That is, if you want
Speaker 1: to go into bankruptcy, all your athts are going to
Speaker 1: go into the pool. And if you don't go too bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: you can make a contribution and say this contribution is
Speaker 1: contingent upon the court giving us a release. The difference
Speaker 1: between mollmost one hundred percent of your assets being in
Speaker 1: the bankruptcy pool and a settlement under which maybe a
Speaker 1: thirty year assets are the six billion does not leave
Speaker 1: the Sackler's poor.
Speaker 2: Six billion. That's just a little over half of their wealth.
Speaker 1: So it is nice to have happy. You know, the
Speaker 1: first three billion that you own are the most important.
Speaker 2: So they haven't admitted their role in fueling the opioid crisis,
Speaker 2: and this just gives them a pass. So what's the sigmal?
Speaker 1: I mean, look at it this way. The claimants for
Speaker 1: getting nothing because Perdue Farmer didn't have much left. They
Speaker 1: didn't file for bankruptcy too. They were down to their
Speaker 1: last stages because they've been sued and suited and sued.
Speaker 1: I think that the argument that E actually moved the
Speaker 1: second Circuit judges, or moved two of them, was that
Speaker 1: this settlement is never going to be resolved and the
Speaker 1: claimants are not going to live forever, and we want
Speaker 1: to get money to people during their lifetimes. And six billion,
Speaker 1: that's a lot more money that was in the pool.
Speaker 1: That's a multiple of the assets that Purdue Pharmer had
Speaker 1: left but we did leave the Sacklers very well off,
Speaker 1: just like yesterday's legislation. Neither side is happy.
Speaker 2: Can this decision be appealed to the Supreme Court?
Speaker 1: It can, but it probably won't be. What you have
Speaker 1: to realize is that most of the claimants went along
Speaker 1: with this. The waited so long. They were very happy
Speaker 1: to get a six billion contribution that gave them something.
Speaker 1: The only claimants that are really left are the Canadian claimants.
Speaker 1: The betting is and I've seen this in several sources
Speaker 1: that they probably won't appeal, but they might they could.
Speaker 2: This doesn't protect the family members from any potential criminal charges, no, but.
Speaker 1: The statue of limitations probably does. You've got to realize
Speaker 1: that the high point of all this is the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: Oxyconton took over the country and became the drug of
Speaker 1: choice back in the nineteen nineties, and Flocks has been
Speaker 1: replaced by much more powerful things like Bethanel.
Speaker 2: I mean, this sounds like a good deal for the Sacklers.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, well, they made this good deal and they
Speaker 1: made a contention on the court approving And I got
Speaker 1: to tell you that the bankruptcy court itself see is
Speaker 1: a lifetime a career just hearing these claims, wants to
Speaker 1: escape that and sees no money going to the claimants
Speaker 1: who are running the court and complaining and screaming they
Speaker 1: need money to survive. And six billion certainly made a difference,
Speaker 1: But it does mean that bankruptcy law changes, and I'm
Speaker 1: afraid we're going to see a lot more of these
Speaker 1: settlements because now any bankruptcy in New York will be
Speaker 1: governed by this. And there's a similar decision in the
Speaker 1: Third Circuit. So I think in the Northeast you're going
Speaker 1: to see a lot of third party claimants not filing
Speaker 1: for bankruptcy, not subjecting all their assets to the bankruptcy court,
Speaker 1: but making some kind of offer. There might be negotiations,
Speaker 1: but some kind of offer that if we put in
Speaker 1: this much money, we will get a release for all
Speaker 1: civil liability. You don't get a release, as you quite
Speaker 1: properly say, from criminal liability. But the statue of limitations
Speaker 1: is now long wrong run on most of this.
Speaker 2: As part of the settlement, they're going to give up
Speaker 2: ownership of the company.
Speaker 1: The company is being turned into a not for profit,
Speaker 1: and the company was bankrupt, there was no great value
Speaker 1: all it's going to do is produce addiction preventing drugs
Speaker 1: and other drugs that will be sold on a cost bases.
Speaker 1: They're not going to try to make any profit, and
Speaker 1: all the money made by Perdue Pharma, which has a
Speaker 1: new name now, will be given to charity if Secklers
Speaker 1: will no longer own Perdue Pharma. But of course Perdue
Speaker 1: Farmer was failing. You don't want to own something that's
Speaker 1: losing money in bankruptcy.
Speaker 2: So what struck me as kind of funny is that
Speaker 2: the family is going to allow their name to be
Speaker 2: removed from buildings and scholarships.
Speaker 1: But that's already happened. I'm a Columbia. Columbia took the
Speaker 1: Sacklers off many years ago.
Speaker 2: But their name can't be disparaged. While that's happening. It
Speaker 2: seems like they just got every which way whatever they want.
Speaker 1: They got a lot. Now now disparagement, Well that's not unusual.
Speaker 1: I think what that means is the university is taking
Speaker 1: the name off. Can't say anything negative. They just say
Speaker 1: we are removing the name and it will now be
Speaker 1: known as the Anthropology Hall wherever it's called the Sackler
Speaker 1: Anthropology Hall.
Speaker 2: So now what's the next step.
Speaker 1: Well, there could be an appeal. Few people think that
Speaker 1: there will be appeals, And if there are appeals, it's
Speaker 1: not at all clear the Supreme Court will take it.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court may not appeared in de ciding a
Speaker 1: bankruptcy lay issue. Remember, the Supreme Court only takes about
Speaker 1: five or six percent of the sotuary appeals brought to her.
Speaker 1: And if they don't get sociary, the case is now final.
Speaker 1: If they do get sotuary, I can't tell you what
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court would do. I think it is less
Speaker 1: than likely that the Supreme Court will take the case.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being on the show. That's Professor
Speaker 2: John Coffee of Columbia Law School.
Speaker 1: There been one hundred and twenty twenty three days to
Speaker 1: president non voting three absent.
Speaker 2: The resolution is adopted and with that, Texas Attorney General
Speaker 2: Ken Paxton, a champion of far right GOP legal fights
Speaker 2: over guns, abortion, and immigration, was impeached in an extraordinary
Speaker 2: vote by the state's Republican dominated House of Representatives, which
Speaker 2: charge him with bribery, obstruction of justice, and eighteen other offenses.
Speaker 2: Is Paxton lashed out at the impeachment proceedings.
Speaker 3: Every politician who supports this deceitful impeachment attempt will then
Speaker 3: flict lasting damage on the credibility of the Texas House
Speaker 3: which I served in.
Speaker 2: The proceedings are historic. There have been only two other
Speaker 2: impeachments in Texas has nearly two hundred year history, and
Speaker 2: now the political showdown is headed to the state Senate.
Speaker 2: Joining me, as Madeline Meckelberg Bloomberg Texas Legal reporter, start
Speaker 2: by telling us about Ken Paxton as a conservative agitator,
Speaker 2: an election denier, bringing so many lawsuits against the Biden
Speaker 2: and Obama administrations.
Speaker 4: You hit on all of the headlines there for Paxton.
Speaker 4: Paxton is a long time Republican elected official in Texas.
Speaker 4: He's held office here for the past twenty years, most
Speaker 4: recently at Attorney General, and in that role he really
Speaker 4: has cultivated this national reputation of being a leading voice
Speaker 4: on these hot button GOP political issues that includes abortion,
Speaker 4: gun rights, immigration, the border is a big focus for him.
Speaker 4: And then he really became a key ally of former
Speaker 4: President Donald Trump. And you mentioned it already. He was
Speaker 4: a leading voice when it came to denying the legitimacy
Speaker 4: of the twenty twenty presidential election, he launched an unsuccessful
Speaker 4: case before the US Supreme Court seeking to overturn those
Speaker 4: election results. And he has just stayed in that lane,
Speaker 4: known for being a conservative firebrand on every issue, and
Speaker 4: really built his career as Attorney General on doing the
Speaker 4: Obama administration and now doing the Biden administration.
Speaker 2: Have allegations of criminal and ethical misconduct followed him through
Speaker 2: his tenure as Attorney general, so since twenty fourteen, yes
Speaker 2: they have.
Speaker 4: He was elected to AG in twenty fourteen, as you said,
Speaker 4: and then just a few months later he was actually
Speaker 4: indicted on security spread charges. He was accused of persuading
Speaker 4: investors to buy stock in this tech firm without disclosing
Speaker 4: that he would be compensated for that. And ever since
Speaker 4: then the allegations against him have grown in their scope
Speaker 4: and they've really now shifted to be about his conduct
Speaker 4: while in office. But ever since then, he has been
Speaker 4: hounded by these different allegations, including bribery, including abusive office
Speaker 4: and the like, and he's been under investigation by federal
Speaker 4: authorities which is ongoing. He's part of multiple lawsuits around
Speaker 4: this wrongdoing allegedly and the criminal case against him connected
Speaker 4: to that initial indictment is still ongoing. It's yet to
Speaker 4: be resolved.
Speaker 2: So you just went through the litany of problems he's had.
Speaker 2: What happened to lead to this impeachment? After all the
Speaker 2: other inquiries, after all the stuff that's out there, he
Speaker 2: was still reelected. What led to this impeachment?
Speaker 4: That is the million dollar question right now in Texas.
Speaker 4: I mean to say the news this week was shocking
Speaker 4: is an understatement considering how much Paxton has weathered as
Speaker 4: Attorney general. As you said, he was just re elected
Speaker 4: to his third term in office, and these allegations have
Speaker 4: been out in the open in the public. I can
Speaker 4: take you back to the saga of this week, how
Speaker 4: this impeachment unfolded over the span of just a few days,
Speaker 4: and it started with Paxton coming out and issuing this
Speaker 4: statement calling on House Speaker Dave Feelin to resign because
Speaker 4: there was a video circulating of him on the internet
Speaker 4: that people were speculating he appeared to be intoxicated while
Speaker 4: presiding over the Texas House this week, and Paxton called
Speaker 4: on a House Ethics committee to hold an investigation into
Speaker 4: Feln's office. Later that day, that House Investigative Committee scheduled
Speaker 4: a meeting, but the meeting was actually about them revealing
Speaker 4: that they had been conducting a secret, month long investigation
Speaker 4: into Paxton's conduct while in office, and they say that
Speaker 4: this investigation was prompted by an ongoing whistle blower lawsuit
Speaker 4: against Paxton that was brought by three high ranking officials
Speaker 4: in his office who say they were terminated after reporting
Speaker 4: Paxton's two federal authorities for bribery. Paxton reached a settlement
Speaker 4: agreement with those whistleblowers that totaled three point three million dollars,
Speaker 4: but since Paxton is a public official, that money had
Speaker 4: to be taxpayer dollars and it had to be approved
Speaker 4: by state lawmakers in the budget. Lawmakers rejected that request,
Speaker 4: but they say that him asking for that money required
Speaker 4: them to conduct an investigation into the conduct behind the lawsuit,
Speaker 4: and that's how we got to where we are today,
Speaker 4: which is him being impeached by the full House.
Speaker 2: I thought it was unusual that the committee said that
Speaker 2: if he hadn't requested that money, we wouldn't have been
Speaker 2: this investigation. So tell us about the articles of impeachment.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think that's such a great point that you
Speaker 4: highlighted they really made a point of saying, like, we
Speaker 4: wouldn't be doing this if you hadn't asked us for
Speaker 4: this money. And so it's interesting that that was a
Speaker 4: tipping point for them after all these years. But yes,
Speaker 4: they conducted an investigation and they presented these twenty articles
Speaker 4: of impeachment that the full Republican dominated Texas House decided
Speaker 4: to vote and adopt over this past Memorial Day weekend.
Speaker 4: And they're twenty articles that kind of spanned the years
Speaker 4: of allegations against him that we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 4: but they include things like bribery, obstruction of justice, abuse
Speaker 4: of public trust, and things under that umbrella, and the
Speaker 4: bulk of them are around the allegations that were part
Speaker 4: of this whistleblower lawsuit that these employees say they were
Speaker 4: fired for reporting this bribery. Paxton has been accused of
Speaker 4: using his own office to aid a wealthy donor, Austin
Speaker 4: real estate developer Meet Paul, who's got his own hosts
Speaker 4: of legal problems and investigations into his business feelings. And
Speaker 4: they say that Paxton was using his office to help
Speaker 4: him and to conceal information from law enforcement, and he
Speaker 4: was potentially giving confidential information to meet Paul about this
Speaker 4: investigation into him, and that's where the bulk of these
Speaker 4: charges come from. They point to really specific actions that
Speaker 4: they say Paxton took while in office in order to
Speaker 4: help Paul.
Speaker 2: Were people in Texas or a legislator stunned by the
Speaker 2: overwhelming majority voting to impeach him.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I don't think I spoke to a single person
Speaker 4: who predicted that there would be an impeachment vote and
Speaker 4: that it would pass with such strong support in the House.
Speaker 4: The final vote was one hundred and twenty one lawmakers
Speaker 4: voting in favor and just twenty three voting against impeaching Paxson,
Speaker 4: and that includes sixty of his Republican colleagues in the House.
Speaker 4: But the matter's not settled with the impeachment is just
Speaker 4: the charges. He hasn't been convicted of anything. Now the
Speaker 4: matter is going to turn over to the Senate, and
Speaker 4: I think there's equal confusion about what might happen there.
Speaker 4: But yes, I mean during the debate on the House floor,
Speaker 4: it was hard to know exactly how the vote was
Speaker 4: going to go. We had a Democrat stand up and say,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't think I can vote in favor
Speaker 4: of impeachment. I don't think we have enough information here,
Speaker 4: and then we had Republicans come up and speak in
Speaker 4: favor of impeachment, and so for a while it was
Speaker 4: hard to know exactly how the final vote was going
Speaker 4: to go.
Speaker 2: Is there any clue as to what his defense.
Speaker 4: Will be, It's hard to say. We haven't heard him
Speaker 4: address the specific charges yet. So far, he's issued a
Speaker 4: few public statements responding to this, and he calls the
Speaker 4: whole thing an illegal investigation and illegal impeachment. He says
Speaker 4: that Republicans who run the Texas govern here have been
Speaker 4: taken by Democrats and they're in Joe Biden's pocket. But
Speaker 4: we haven't heard him speak to this specific charges. His
Speaker 4: office has issued a report that they say disput all
Speaker 4: of the allegations against him. It's not something they produced
Speaker 4: in connection to the impeachment. It's something they had produced prior.
Speaker 4: But the investigators who helped to draft these articles of
Speaker 4: impeachment for the House Committee, they've said that that report
Speaker 4: is full of inaccuracies and wrongdoing at this point, so
Speaker 4: it's really hard to say what we can expect from
Speaker 4: him when this fully goes to trial, and that includes
Speaker 4: what we've been able to learn from these other lossuits
Speaker 4: that I mentioned, none of these cases have really gotten
Speaker 4: to a point where we've had to hear Paxton respond
Speaker 4: specifically to the allegations against him. And that's going to
Speaker 4: change now.
Speaker 2: And I understand his wife is a state senator. Is
Speaker 2: it known yet whether she's going to recuse herself.
Speaker 4: No, that's a huge question. The debate in the Senate
Speaker 4: is going to open up all of these different political
Speaker 4: questions because Paxton himself is a former state senator and
Speaker 4: so he served in that chamber with many of the
Speaker 4: members that are still there to this day. Those, of course,
Speaker 4: are lesser conflicts of interest potentially than his own wife
Speaker 4: being asked to vote on whether he should be convicted
Speaker 4: of these charges. People have called for her to accuse herself,
Speaker 4: but she hasn't said anything. With TenneT Governor Dan Patrick
Speaker 4: is who presides over the Senate in Texas, and he
Speaker 4: is also a Pakistan ally in that he is a
Speaker 4: Trump ally. They've been on the campaign stage with Trump
Speaker 4: when he comes to Texas and they express a lot
Speaker 4: of the same interests. But we've heard Patrick come out
Speaker 4: and say, I want to conduct a really fair trial
Speaker 4: in the Senate. Don't know what that means exactly. That
Speaker 4: remains to be seen. He said that he's planning to
Speaker 4: set a date by no later than the end of August,
Speaker 4: so we're expecting to see some kind of action on
Speaker 4: this this summer. But yeah, we don't really know any
Speaker 4: of the specifics yet. And yes, his wife, Senator Angela Paxton,
Speaker 4: has not said what her role may or may not
Speaker 4: be when that time comes.
Speaker 2: And were there allegations that Paxton threatened several Republican lawmakers
Speaker 2: with political consequences in their next election if they voted
Speaker 2: for impeachment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was something that came out during debate on
Speaker 4: the Texas House floor on the articles of impeachment. State
Speaker 4: Representative Charlie Garan got up and said, I'm voting in
Speaker 4: favor of this. I note that within the time since
Speaker 4: these articles have been announced, Attorney General Paxton has been
Speaker 4: calling different lawmakers on the floor and telling them to
Speaker 4: vote against these articles of impeachment or they could face
Speaker 4: political retribution in the next election. We haven't seen any
Speaker 4: lawmakers come forward and say that, yes, that was me.
Speaker 4: I got the call from General Paxton. But that's definitely
Speaker 4: an allegation that's been circulating. People are saying in the
Speaker 4: Senate that he's distributed packets of information to senators defending
Speaker 4: himself from these allegations. So he's definitely doing whatever he
Speaker 4: can to defend himself at this point before court is
Speaker 4: in session, so to speak, and tell.
Speaker 2: Us just how unusual this impeachment is in Texas and
Speaker 2: a fact, across the country, this is.
Speaker 4: Very rare, and so that's why I think there's a
Speaker 4: lot of confusion speculation about what might happen in terms
Speaker 4: of the rules and who can vote, how it's going
Speaker 4: to play out across the whole country. It looks like
Speaker 4: he might be the fourth state attorney general ever to
Speaker 4: be impeached. Most recently, the attorney general in South Dakota
Speaker 4: was impeached and removed from office in twenty twenty two
Speaker 4: after he struck and killed a pedestrian while driving. So
Speaker 4: a really different set of circumstances than what we're looking
Speaker 4: at now, But even within Texas history, it's incredibly rare.
Speaker 4: Texas has impeached only two elected officials ever, and the
Speaker 4: most recent one of those was a district judge in
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy five, and before that it was a governor
Speaker 4: in nineteen seven seventeen. Actually, a few of the current
Speaker 4: members of the Texas House of Representatives were serving in
Speaker 4: the House in nineteen seventy five, so they have been
Speaker 4: part of two historic impeachment votes. But that's just two
Speaker 4: members as far as I can tell. But yes, this
Speaker 4: is incredibly rare process, both in Texas and nationally.
Speaker 2: A few major Republican names are coming to his defense,
Speaker 2: like former President Donald Trump, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Congresswoman
Speaker 2: Marjorie Taylor Green. But does it seem like a lot
Speaker 2: are holding back.
Speaker 4: I think there's a lot that are holding back. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think those would be expected people to come out
Speaker 4: and speak in favor of Paxton. Their views are really aligned,
Speaker 4: and like we said, he's really gone to back for
Speaker 4: Trump time and time again. And I think what's really
Speaker 4: significant about this impeachment, besides the historical context and the
Speaker 4: context of it within Paxton's career, is that this is
Speaker 4: the first time that Republicans in Texas have really been
Speaker 4: forced to say anything about this impeachment. A lot of
Speaker 4: times there's been conversations going into elections about whether Paxton
Speaker 4: will be a drag on the Republican ticket, given these
Speaker 4: allegations against him, but somehow to this point, like high
Speaker 4: ranking Republicans in Texas has been able to avoid speaking
Speaker 4: on this because they've been able to defer to the
Speaker 4: ongoing legal proceedings. You know, they're like, I don't want
Speaker 4: to cast any judgment until a judge says what happens here.
Speaker 4: And so the fact that this many Republicans voted in
Speaker 4: favor of impeachment, I would have expected maybe a bit
Speaker 4: more bull throated support of Pakiston from some of those
Speaker 4: national figures, but I think it's significant that we're not
Speaker 4: really seeing that from any of his allies here at
Speaker 4: home in Texas.
Speaker 2: I know you're going to be watching this carefully. Thanks Madlin.
Speaker 2: That's Madeline Meckelberg, Bloomberg Texas Legal Reporter. And that's it
Speaker 2: for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you
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