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Texas AG Ken Paxton Flees Home in Pickup Truck With His Wife to Avoid Being Served With Subpoena

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Texas tough guys, we hear about them all the time. Cowboy hat-wearing, gun-toting, truck-driving Texans are as tough as they come…or so we’ve been told.

Apparently, that’s not the case with the Attorney General of Texas, who ran like a giant wuss and fled his house when confronted with a process server. Paxton was being issued a subpoena at his home for a court hearing on Tuesday in relation to a lawsuit from non-profit groups seeking to fund out-of-state abortions for Texans.

According to an affidavit filed in federal court, Ernesto Martin Herrera, a process server, arrived at the attorney general’s home to serve the subpoena and was greeted by Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, The Texas Tribune reported.

Herrera said Angela Paxton told him her husband was busy on the phone and he “was in a hurry to leave.”

Herrera said he went back to his car to wait for Ken Paxton and then saw him exiting the garage. “As soon as he saw me and heard me call his name out, he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the garage,” Herrera wrote. Herrera said Angela Paxton told him her husband was busy on the phone and he “was in a hurry to leave.”

Herrera said he went back to his car to wait for Ken Paxton, and then saw him exiting the garage. “As soon as he saw me and heard me call his name out, he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the garage,” Herrera wrote.

“Angela came out and opened the driver’s side and rear side door behind the driver of the truck. She then got inside the truck and started it, leaving the rear door behind the driver’s side open. A few minutes later, I saw Mr. Paxton run from the door inside the garage towards the rear door behind the driver’s side.

“I approached the truck, and loudly called him by his name and stated that I had court documents for him. Mr. Paxton ignored me and kept heading for the truck,” Herrera added.

Eventually, Herrera determined that Paxton was not going to take the subpoena, so he told Paxton that he was serving him with legal documents and left them on the ground by the truck.

In a statement later Tuesday, Paxton accused the server of posing a threat by charging at him and yelling “unintelligible.”

Paxton also said that Herrera is “lucky this situation did not escalate further or necessitate force,” after noting that many Texans keep guns for protection. Nice little threat there, especially since Herrera identified himself as a process server.

From CNBC:

The subpoena had ordered Paxton, a Republican, to testify in a hearing Tuesday morning in a civil lawsuit in which multiple Texas-based nonprofits want to resume helping pregnant residents obtain abortions in other states. That includes paying for out-of-state abortion providers and providing financial aid to those seeking abortions, as well as providing interstate travel to those providers.

The nonprofits say their abortion-assisting activities had ceased shortly before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had enshrined the federal right to abortion for decades, in a 5-4 vote in June. The high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization also threw out another case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which had largely upheld the right to an abortion established by Roe.

Twitter had a field day calling out “tough guy” Paxton:

Nicole Hickman
meet the author

Nicole Hickman James is a lifelong Democrat and political activist who first cut her teeth as a teenager volunteering for Mike Dukakis’ presidential campaign. She has worked and volunteered for John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, HFA (Hillary For America), and Organizing For Action. She’s passionate about liberal and progressive causes and considers President Obama her favorite president ever. She holds her Bachelor’s from Boston College in Economics and her Master's from Columbia, also in Economics. When not working as a writer, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her three college-aged children.

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