Marjorie Taylor Greene says GOP’s Ken Paxton shouldn’t be convicted because he fought “Transtifa”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is now openly arguing that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) should not be removed from office despite the accusations of corruption that he faces because he fought trans rights and convicting him would be a “great victory” for liberals.

Paxton “fought for the border,” Greene wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “He fought for election integrity. He fought against Transtifa.”

Related:

Lesbian Attorney General claps back at Ken Paxton’s shocking transphobia

Out Attorney General Dana Nessel called her Texan counterpart “a walking hate crime.”

“If he is convicted this week in the Texas Senate impeachment trial, the left will win a great victory in Texas and Texas Republicans will be the ones that hand it to them.”

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Paxton is accused of repeatedly abusing the privileges of his office to help a campaign donor, and he was impeached in May by the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives.

He is currently under indictment on securities fraud charges and is being investigated by federal authorities for allegedly accepting bribes and improperly using his influence, accusations that came from four former staffers. He then allegedly fired the whistleblowers in violation of state law and, after they sued, agreed to a $3.3 million settlement where he didn’t admit fault, but then he requested state funds to pay for the settlement.

This led state house Republicans to impeach him earlier this year, citing 4000 pages of evidence against him related to the whistleblowers and other accusations, many of which centered around donor Nate Paul, a real estate investor. There was evidence that Paxton accepted $20,000 in countertop materials from Paul while remodeling his home and accusations that Paxton had an affair.

Paxton now has to be convicted by the Texas Senate to be removed from office. His wife, Angela Paxton, is a member of the Texas Senate, although she is barred from voting on his conviction at the trial.

Greene is correct in that Paxton has been a long-time opponent of LGBTQ+ – and particularly transgender – rights. Paxton sued the Biden administration over its policy that barred adoption and foster agencies from discriminating against potential LGBTQ+ parents.

Paxton fought against transgender youth’s access to gender-affirming care, investigating hospitals and writing a non-binding legal opinion accusing supportive parents of “child abuse” that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) later used to order child abuse investigations against the parents of trans kids.

In 2022, he said that he would be comfortable defending a hypothetical state law to the Supreme Court that made it illegal to be gay. He has long defended sodomy laws, arguing that they are necessary to fight the “very real danger of same-sex sodomy” and that state lawmakers are just concerned “for the health safety and well-being of those who may seek to engage in same-sex sodomy” when passing laws outlawing homosexuality.