Jeff Mateer testified that Paxton was so intent on helping Austin real estate investor Nate Paul that he worried the attorney general was being blackmailed.
, was devoting so much of the agency’s attention to Paxton’s friend, Austin real estate investor Nate Paul.
In more than six hours of testimony, Mateer — the first witness called by the House impeachment managers — detailed his growing concerns through the summer and fall of 2020 about Paxton’s relationship with Paul, culminating in Mateer’s decision to join other senior advisers in reporting the attorney general’s behavior to the FBI on Sept. 30.
Mateer exhibited a pained expression when asked about the relationship, as Paxton’s wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, sat about 30 feet away — present for the trial but barred from deliberating or voting by Senate rules. Prodded by impeachment lawyer Rusty Hardin, Mateer said the affair was the missing piece that explained the bizarre behavior Paxton had exhibited in asking his senior deputies to help Paul.
Mateer’s appearance was widely anticipated due to his position as Paxton’s most senior deputy and because he has said little publicly in the nearly three years since he resigned his post in October 2020. “We were at the forefront of having Texas reopen and to stop COVID restrictions. … We were the ones pushing to have Texas open up,” Mateer said. “The opinion took the complete opposite view.”
“We considered it sort of a crisis moment,” Mateer said. “Everything regarding Mr. Paul was coming to a head.”
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