The Dictatorship
Ken Paxton’s divorce just upended a must-watch GOP Senate primary
A divorce announcement on X last week just upended an already must-watch U.S. Senate race — and sparked a megadrama of Texas-sized proportions.
State Sen. Angela Paxton announced Thursday that she filed for divorce from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, after years of the latter facing allegations of public extramarital affairs, criminal indictments and impeachment hearings. In a post on X, the state senator said she was filing on “biblical grounds” and “in light of recent discoveries.” For those not fluent in Evangelical, Texas Monthly provided a translation: “What is ‘biblical grounds’ for divorce? The short answer is: cheating.”
The announcement is a well-timed bruising for the long-embattled but seemingly untouchable attorney general.
Angela Paxton’s announcement, though, is more than grist for the gossip mill. Since Ken Paxton is running to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and has positioned himself as an “anti-establishment MAGA warrior,” the post from his soon-to-be ex-wife was met with a torrent of schadenfreude and jeers online. The primary race was already a must-watch: Paxton just announced a $2.9 million fundraising haul and polls from both Paxton-allied and Cornyn-allied super PACs show the attorney general with a clear lead over the incumbent, who managed to outraise Paxton by $1 million.
Now it promises to be even more expensive and more brutal, as the candidates and their surrogates increasingly engage in highly personal attacks that expand on years-old divides among Texas Republicans.
The announcement is a well-timed bruising for the long-embattled but seemingly untouchable attorney general, who was first elected in 2014 and has since managed to stave off multiple indictments and a bitter impeachment attempt that extensively aired allegations Paxton had an extramarital affairexposed volatile fissures within the Texas GOP, and sparked an open civil war between the hard-right and more centrist leaning wings of the party.
After Angela Paxton’s announcement, Paxton responded with his own post on Xstating that “after facing the pressures of countless political attacks and public scrutiny” the two “have decided to start a new chapter in our lives.”
“I could not be any more proud or grateful for the incredible family that God has blessed us with, and I remain committed to supporting our amazing children and grandchildren,” he wrote. “I ask for your prayers and privacy at this time.” Paxton did not comment on his wife’s allegations.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee — the Senate GOP’s campaign committee — pounced on the news to take a swipe at Paxton. “What Ken Paxton has put his family through is truly repulsive and disgusting,” NRSC spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez said. “No one should have to endure what Angela Paxton has, and we pray for her as she chooses to stand up for herself and her family during this difficult time.”
The explanation for an official arm of the Senate GOP caucus attacking a GOP candidate goes beyond Cornyn being the incumbent. “Democrats believe, and some Republicans fear, Paxton would be a weaker general candidate who could finally put the Lone Star State in play,” Politico reported Monday. No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas in more than 30 years, but Paxton has consistently run behind other Republicans such as Gov. Greg Abbott, thanks to his record of scandals. And Paxton’s challenge fits a broader trend of well-funded far-right challengers taking aim at conservative incumbents in Texas.
That history is worth a brief recap.
In 2015, Paxton was indicted on felony charges of securities fraudincluding defrauding a then-colleague in the Texas House. The legal battle dragged on until a settlement was reached in March of last yearwhich included Paxton agreeing to do 100 hours of community service and pay nearly $300,000 in restitution.
When Paxton asked the state government to pay the $3.3 million, the state Legislature balked.
In 2020, several of his top aides in the Office of the Attorney General accused him of firing them after reporting him to the FBI for, in the words of The Associated Press, “misusing his office to help one of his campaign contributors, who also employed a woman with whom the attorney general acknowledged having an extramarital affair.”
The contributor, an Austin real estate developer named Nate Paul, was under federal fraud investigation (he was arrested in 2023 and earlier this year pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to a lending institution). According to Paxton’s aides, the attorney general used his office to help Paul in a civil lawsuit. In return, the aides said, Paul employed Paxton’s alleged mistress and helped Paxton continue his affair through a secret Uber account that Paul and Paxton shared. An aide also claimed that Paul paid for Paxton’s kitchen to be renovated with granite countertops. Paxton denied the allegations, but eventually offered to settle a lawsuit from the whistleblowers for $3.3 million.
But when Paxton asked the state government to pay the $3.3 millionthe state Legislature balked, with lawmakers undertaking their own investigation of his conduct as attorney general. In May 2023the Texas House voted overwhelmingly to impeach Paxton. During a trial presided over by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — who took a $3 million donation from a pro-Paxton PAC in the run-up to the Senate proceedings — Paxton was acquitted in the Senate in September 2023. Earlier this month, the state of Texas agreed to pay $6.6 million to four of the whistleblowers from taxpayer funds.
Through all these scandals, though, the far right’s support for the attorney general hasn’t wavered. In no small part, that’s because Paxton has long been seen as one of Donald Trump’s staunchest allies who is willing to go to great lengths to support the president’s agenda. After the 2020 election, for instance, Paxton asked the Supreme Court to throw out other states’ election results; the Texas State Bar filed a complaint alleging that Paxton “misrepresented” facts in that lawsuit, and only dropped its attempt to discipline the Texas attorney general after Trump returned to office. No wonder, then, that MAGA influencers like Laura Loomer have jumped into the fray with their own allegations of sordid behavior against the Cornyn campaign.
MAGA loyalty to Paxton is a problem for Cornyn because the GOP primary electorate in Texas has shifted further to the right since he was first elected to the Senate in 2002. The senator’s favorability ratings have declined relative to statewide elected officials like Paxton, who has seen his political star rise in correlation with the strength of the far right in Texas.
Should Cornyn manage to prevent Trump from supporting Paxton, he could have a fighting chance.
The two have sought to draw sharp distinctions. Cornyn has called Paxton a “con man and a fraud” for his spotted past. Paxton has branded Cornyn a RINO — Republican In Name Only — for some of his votes, namely Cornyn’s backing of bipartisan legislation on gun safety following the 2022 Uvalde school shooting and his support for U.S. aid to Ukraine.
At this point in the race, Paxton and Cornyn are fighting for Trump’s support — or at the very least, for Trump to not weigh in favor of their opponent. Not surprisingly, Paxton has the edge. Not only has he received praise from Trump, but Trump has also openly criticized Cornyn as a “RINO” in the past, and Cornyn expressed criticism of Trump in 2016 and 2024. But in recent months, Cornyn has sought to alter this dynamic by emphasizing his support for the president and allegiance to his agenda, hiring staffers in Trump’s orbit, and has supported all of Trump’s Cabinet appointments
Should Cornyn manage to prevent Trump from supporting Paxton, he could have a fighting chance — particularly if his allies in the Senate GOP can convince primary voters that Paxton is a corrupt and hypocritical philanderer who quotes the Bible but doesn’t follow its precepts. But Paxton has proven thus far to have Teflon skin and the challenge for Cornyn is getting something to stick.
Whether any of that matters to voters, and whether they hear about any of it at all, are the questions that will ultimately decide this Republican primary. But in the end, given Cornyn’s voting record, the difference will be a matter of degrees for Texans who hold a dim view of Trump’s agenda.
Steven Monacelli
Steven Monacelli is a columnist for”https://thebarbedwire.com/” target=”_blank”>The Barbed Wire and a freelance investigative journalist in Dallas.
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Eight protesters accused by the Justice Department of having ties to antifawere sentenced Tuesday to decades in federal prison over a shooting outside a Texas immigration detention center that wounded a police officer. Prosecutors have called the shooting an act of terrorism.
One of the defendants, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist convicted of opening fire during the July 4 demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas, was sentenced to 100 years in prison, the maximum punishment.
The lengthy sentences were condemned by family members and supporters in a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. Hope Song, whose son Benjamin Songreceived the heftiest sentence, disputed prosecutors’ claims that her son shot the officer and said he didn’t intend to hurt anyone.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, one of two judges overseeing the proceedings, said what happened wasn’t a protest but “an assault on democracy.”
“The need to deter this type of conduct is high,” O’Connor said.
The seven other protesters received prison terms ranging from 30 to 70 years.
Prosecutors said the eight are members of antifa, a decentralized anti-fascist organization and a targetof the Trump administration. Antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.
President Donald Trump last fall signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, even though there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations.
The defendants deny any affiliation with antifa and maintain they attended the demonstration in support of detained immigrants.
Prosecutor Frank Gatto urged the judge to impose stiff penalties.
“People with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison,” Gatto said. “They believe violence is justified.”
Phillip Hayes, Song’s attorney, said outside the courthouse that he takes issue with the idea that the protesters are extremists.
“This is a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a really big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard,” Hayes said. “It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.”
Prosecutors said in court that Song had yelled “get to the rifles” and opened fire, striking a police officer who had just pulled up to the center.
Hayes argued that Song’s shots were “suppressive fire” and that a ricochet bullet hit the officer after he arrived on the scene and “aggressively” pulled out his firearm. He said his client will appeal the 100-year sentence.
“Song, aside from this day, has had an impeccable life. A former Marine. A good student,” Hayes said. “He had a lot of good qualities that were just ignored. The judge went ahead and gave as much as he could.”
Other defendants and their family members pleaded for leniency in court.
Autumn Hill said the gathering “seemed more like a party to me than anything else” and that she and others who participated “didn’t expect or want any violence or destruction of property to occur.”
Amber Lowrey told the judge that her sister, Savanna Batten, is a compassionate person with dreams of opening a bakery. She said Batten’s activism started with animal rights and evolved into anti-war and human rights advocacy.
“She’s the best person I know,” Lowrey said.
Hill and Batten both received 50-year sentences.
Other defendants previously pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than take their case to trial.
Critics warn the case could have a wide-reaching impact on protests given that organizations operating within the U.S. are supposed to be protected by First Amendment free-speech rights.
Last week, federal prosecutors charged 15 peoplewith impeding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdownin Minnesota. They claimed the demonstrators were members of antifa who conspired against the federal government to block arrests and deportations by setting up blockades around government buildings and throwing chunks of ice at federal vehicles, among other actions.
The Dictatorship
Tulsi Gabbard and Senate GOP face difficult new questions over influence of her ‘guru’
About a month into Donald Trump’s second term, Senate Republicans weighed whether to confirm one of the president’s worst nominees. Indeed, the list of reasons to reject Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence was not short.
The former congresswoman lacked the requisite experience in intelligence matters. She had an indefensible habit of echoing Russian propaganda. She struggled to explain her record of defending Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime. Senators heard from former national security officials who issued unsubtle warnings about elevating Gabbard to an important and influential position.
But in case that weren’t quite enough, let’s also not overlook the fact that Gabbard was a member of a secretive Hare Krishna offshoot religious sect that is considered by many of its former members to be an abusive cult.
Gabbard, who wrapped up her tenure as DNI last week, has long insisted that any suggestion that she was somehow enthralled to or controlled by this sect or its leader, whom she has referred to as her “guru,” is just bigotry against her faith.
But it’s against this backdrop that The Washington Post obtained hundreds of secret memos prepared for Gabbard during her congressional tenure, which were put together by members of the alleged cult and which included thousands of pages of specific directives to her on policy and politics.
After careful analysis of thousands of these documents, which have not been independently verified by MS NOW, the Post determined that they likely came from Gabbard’s secretive guru, a man named Chris Butler.
The memos, starting in 2013, when the Hawaiian first arrived on Capitol Hill, reflect a dynamic in which Gabbard didn’t just take direction from the materials, but essentially took dictation from the alleged cult leader: Memos told Gabbard what she should do as a member of Congress, and she often did exactly that, sometimes word for word.
The Post’s Jon Swaine spent months trying to get Gabbard to respond to questions, but to no avail. Her spokeswoman reportedly encouraged Swaine to drop the story, saying, “I cannot imagine WaPo’s readers would be interested in yet another uncredible, bigoted attack on the DNI’s faith.”
On May 20, Swaine nevertheless alerted the DNI and top members of her staff to the fact that the Post was prepared to publish his reporting anyway on her association with Butler.
On May 22, Fox News reported that Gabbard was leaving the administration, ostensibly because of a health issue involving her husband.
This week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor and commented on the reporting:
There are reports that Tulsi Gabbard was receiving instructions from a so-called guru and repeating them word for word. That ought to concern all of us if it’s true. No one knows who this guru really is, what his connections are, and where the instructions came from. … We need answers.
The New York Democrat’s comments made sense, though it’s worth considering who, exactly, “we need answers” from.
It stands to reason, for example, that Gabbard has some explaining to do, but I’m also interested in the answers from those who elevated her to an influential intelligence office in the first place.
In February 2025, confronted with an avalanche of reasons to reject Gabbard’s nomination, 52 Senate Republicans — every GOP member except Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell — shrugged off every red flag and voted to confirm her as the nation’s DNI, including so-called “moderates” such as Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
The question for these 52 senators seems obvious: Do you regret that confirmation vote and now recognize it as a mistake? Or do you still think it was a good idea to put Gabbard in this influential intelligence position?
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
In the lead-up to the Iran war, President Donald Trump dismissed the possibility that Tehran would close the Strait of Hormuz despite warnings from his top military adviser, authors of a new book told MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday.
In their first televised interview about “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan said Trump also disregarded warnings from Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the potential effects on American weaponry and about casualties.
The initial closure of the strait, a narrow passageway through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes, led to a spike in gas and oil prices. According to Swan, Trump thought Iran would have limited time to take action because the war would be over quickly — a claim he has made repeatedly during the nearly four-month-long war.
“He felt that this regime was a paper tiger, that this was going to be a fast war,” Swan said on “The Last Word.” “He just said he felt that that was going to be the case, that they were going to collapse very quickly.”
“It’s a form of magical thinking, actually, is what it all boils down to,” he added.
The revelation is just one of several in the book — which is based on more than 1,000 interviews — that illustrate how Trump repeatedly bases geopolitical decisions on his own whims rather than experts’ assessments.
Another example of such thinking was when Trump floated a plan to expel 2 million Palestinians from Gaza so he could turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Haberman and Swan wrote in the book that one senior aide characterized the idea as “legitimately nutso … but very on-brand.”
Haberman also spoke about “how scared” people were inside the White House ahead of last year’s so-called Liberation Daywhen Trump unveiled sweeping global tariffs. (The Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in February.)
“They were scared at how close the bond markets came to just completely melting down seven days later, which was finally what got him [Trump] off of it, but again, it was the willingness to just go straight to the brink” that was jarring, Haberman said.
Despite such fear among Trump’s staff, Haberman added, the White House makes up “a group of people who genuinely want to see him succeed.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.
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