Ken Paxton impeachment: Attempts to dismiss foiled in wake of new documents

AUSTIN, Texas - The effort to get impeachment articles against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton dismissed played right into the hands of prosecutors, says a Dallas constitutional law attorney

This assessment comes as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick classified the upcoming trial as a "political process."

"I have 31 Senators. They are the jury. That's it, and it makes for a very interesting process. It's not a criminal trial. It's not a civil trial. It's a political trial," said Patrick in an exclusive interview Tuesday with FOX 26 Houston political reporter Greg Groogan.

The Senate Chamber is now ready for the September trial. Wednesday, clerks could be seen working on files a few hours before the last batch of motions for the impeachment trial were made public. 

In the new paperwork, House prosecutors responded to a demand made by Paxton’s defense team for specific evidence to be provided. 

RELATED: New documents outline evidence in Ken Paxton impeachment trial

In the answer to the motion, it was stated a large disclosure like in a criminal trial is not a requirement of the impeachment process. The prosecutors, however, did offer several scandalous details against the Attorney General.

Be careful what you ask for: that's the lesson, according to Dallas attorney David Coale, from the latest fallout from the Paxton impeachment case.

"The statement that the House Managers came back with was very powerful. And it wasn't just lawyer powerful with cases and lots of citations. It was clearly designed so that people would be able to understand it easily," said Coale.

The new accusations include a scheme to cover up Paxton’s relationships with a mistress and an Austin developer she worked for. Paxton allegedly used a burner phone and an Uber account with a fake name to meet his mistress. He is also accused of making a six-figure payment to address a free home remodeling job that’s portrayed as a bribe. 

Coale told FOX 7 the response plays into comments made by the Lt. Governor about the impeachment trial.

"Think about this for a second. In any other trial out there, civil, or criminal, you work very hard to find jurors that don't know anything about the case, have never met the parties. Here you've got a jury where every single one of them knows the parties, and well, and knows some stuff about the underlying facts. And so that jury would never be impaneled in the real world. But it's the jury we have for this. So we start with that," said Coale.

The answer was not just political, it was calculated to get a big public response, according to Coale.

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"When the House managers come in with something that every news outlet in the state picked up and everybody over the coffee machine in the morning is talking about, Ken Paxton's burner phones, it worked. Politically, that has political influence, that has an impact on this particular jury, a different jury, different court. It might not really be that big a deal, but for these folks, they played exactly the right note to really resonate with what these guys are interested in," said Coale.

The way that this political process has been laid out with the Rules, the trail could go for weeks. But it also could end on day one within the first hour. 

Coale says it’s clear that’s the strategy of the defense, but that plan, at least for now, seems to have backfired.

"I think he's put a lot of chips on the table trying to get this dismissed early. And, you know, he's got some blowback in these papers yesterday that may make that a little harder than he thought it was going to be," said Coale.  

In the motions, House Managers agreed with Patrick stating the trial is "unique, if not mostly political." Lt. Gov. Patrick will issue rulings on motions dealing with rules for the trial when it begins Sept. 5. 

Motions to dismiss all or some of the articles of impeachment, will also be taken up on that first day.  The final say on those will be made by members of the Senate who are acting as the political jury.