In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a controversial lawsuit against the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule their votes unconstitutional.
The matter was widely discussed in the media, and even some GOP members thought it was not Texas’s place to question the way elections are run in other states. Others suggested it was merely a publicity stunt made by Paxton to get a presidential pardon from Trump.
The lawsuit was quickly dismissed by the Supreme Court, and even President Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr said that the Department of Justice didn’t find any evidence of widespread voter fraud.
A new report by the New York Times is now shedding some light on the matter. The investigation found that the lawsuit was actually drafted by a team of lawyers close to Trump’s campaign, not the AG’s office. Paxton was the only attorney general in the country willing to file the document to the supreme court.
Due to his current legal situation, Paxton wasn’t Trump’s first choice to lead the lawsuit. The report notes that a “particularly intense” appeal was also made to Louisiana Attorney General Jeffrey M. Landry, but he declined to lead the legal battle, giving Trump’s team no other choice but to go with Paxton.
It’s worth mentioning that Paxton participated in the “Save America” rally for Trump in Washington D.C. hours before the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6. He did not receive a presidential pardon from Trump.
