defend texaS liberty PAC
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months after a scandal over his ties to white supremacists, far-right political operative and former state lawmaker Jonathan Stickland has created a new group — with help from outgoing Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi.
On March 5, Stickland registered “RaTmasTeR Holdings LLC” with the Texas secretary of state, and Rinaldi is listed as the new group’s organizer. A week later, the chief operating officer of Pale Horse Strategies — a far-right consulting firm Stickland owns — separately registered another group, “Patriot Service Alliance LLC,” according to the Texas Voice, a conservative website that first noted the new groups on Friday.
“RaTmasTeR” is a reference to the alias that Stickland has used for decades in online gaming forums, where he was an infamous troll. Stickland parlayed the skills he honed during his early life as an internet antagonist to help lift him from a job in pest control to the Texas House and, eventually, one of the most powerful political positions in the state.
Stickland and Rinaldi, who is stepping down as Texas GOP chair next month, did not respond to requests for comment Friday afternoon.
Stickland has been at the center of a white supremacy scandal since October, when The Texas Tribune reported that he had hosted infamous Adolf Hitler fan Nick Fuentes at Pale Horse’s offices for several hours. Rinaldi was also spotted outside Pale Horse’s one-story office building in rural Tarrant County, but denied knowing Fuentes was inside.
The meeting — as well as subsequent reporting by the Tribune that uncovered other white supremacists in Stickland’s orbit — prompted House Speaker Dade Phelan and other Republicans to call for party members to redirect money they received from Stickland’s group, Defend Texas Liberty, to pro-Israel charities.
Defend Texas Liberty is a powerful political action committee that West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks have used to give more than $15 million to far-right groups, lawmakers and candidates. Dunn and Wilks are also Attorney General Ken Paxton’s biggest donors, and Defend Texas Liberty gave $3 million to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick last summer, before Patrick presided over Paxton’s impeachment trial in the state Senate.
In the fallout from the Fuentes meeting, nearly half of the Texas GOP’s executive committee called for the party to cut ties with Stickland and Defend Texas Liberty, which was the party’s biggest donor last year.
Stickland was quietly replaced as Defend Texas Liberty’s president in October, and Pale Horse Strategies later rebranded as “West Fort Worth Management LLC.” (Not long after it was registered last month, “Patriot Service Alliance” filed paperwork to operate under the name “West Fort Worth Management LLC”). Rinaldi, meanwhile, has continued to attack critics of Stickland and Defend Texas Liberty — while quietly working as an attorney for Wilks, one of the group’s billionaire funders.
In November, the Texas GOP’s executive committee narrowly rejected a resolution that banned the party from associating with Holocaust deniers, antisemites and neo-Nazis — language that some members argued could create a slippery slope and complicate the party’s relationship with donors or future candidates. After backlash, the party in January passed a resolution that banned it from associating with antisemites — a significantly watered-down version of previous proposals that specifically named Stickland and Defend Texas Liberty.
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Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is expressing anger and outrage after his state’s Speaker of the House, a fellow Republican, issued a statement denouncing an influential far-right activist, donor, and Super PAC head, saying, “The Republican Party is no place for Hitler apologists.”
Speaker Dade Phelan on Monday demanded the Lt. Governor (photo) give away $3 million in donations he received from Defend Texas Liberty PAC, whose President, Jonathan Stickland, he says, “fraternized for six hours with a notorious, anti-Semitic, nazi sympathizer who denies the existence of the Holocaust.” Stickland is the Republican former Texas state representative who reportedly said in 2008, “Rape is non existent in marriage, take what you want my friend!” and has called vaccines “sorcery.”
Phelan was referring to “notorious white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes,” writes Mark Pitcavage, a Senior Research Fellow at the ADL Center on Extremism.
“At a time when we are witnessing heinous attacks on our Israeli allies by Hamas terrorists – the most egregious assault on Jewish lives since the Holocaust – Jonathan Stickland, the President of Defend Texas Liberty PAC, fraternized for six hours with a notorious, anti-Semitic, nazi sympathizer who denies the existence of the Holocaust,” wrote Speaker Phelan, citing a Texas Tribune report from Sunday.
“This not just a casual misstep. It’s indicative of the moral, political rot that has been festering in a certain segment of our party for far too long. Anti-Semitism, bigotry and Hitler apologists should find no sanctuary in the Republican party. Period. We cannot – and must not – tolerate the tacit endorsement of such vile ideologies.”
Phelan continued, saying, “I call upon any elected official who has accepted political donations from Defend Texas Liberty PAC, or any of its affiliate organizations, to immediately redirect every single cent of those contributions to a charitable organization of his or her choice.”
“Furthermore, I call upon elected officials and candidates to state unequivocally that they will not accept further contributions, including in-kind contributions, from the Defend Texas Liberty PAC. Recently, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick took $3 million from this organization. I expect him to lead the way in redirecting these funds.”
“Additionally, the Republican Party of Texas has received $132,500 during this election cycle from the Defend Texas Liberty PAC. As of their last report, RPT had just under $50,000 on hand. I call upon Chairman Matt Rinaldi to direct the party to donate these Defend Texas Liberty funds to charity. And if doing so would take the party into the red, I would be happy to provide a short-term loan until Chairman Rinaldi can replace the money with other donations.”
“There is no excuse to keep tainted funds from an organization that provides a platform for hatemongers, sexual predators, racists and nazi sympathizers.”
The Texas Tribune report noted that it had “observed Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi outside the building, but he denied meeting Fuentes and denounced him.”
Just a few hours after Phelan’s statement, Lt. Gov. Patrick demanded the Speaker resign.
“I didn’t think even Dade Phelan would stoop this low,” Patrick in a statement, Austin, Texas’ KDFM reports. “He has now absolutely hit rock bottom. His latest political stunt is disgusting, despicable, and disingenuous. With nearly 1,000 dead and over a hundred kidnapped, anyone who would use the war in Israel for their own political purposes is revolting, repulsive, and repugnant. Nick Fuentes and his anti-Semitic rhetoric have no place in the United States. Those who spew such vile, loathsome, abominations will have to answer for it.”
“For anyone to try to use these invectives for their own political gain is below contempt,” Patrick aded. “I am calling on Dade Phelan to resign his position before the House gavels in this afternoon. There is no place in Texas political discourse for any elected official to use the atrocities in Israel for their own political gain. That’s what Dade Phelan is doing. At this point, he’s simply got to go.”
KDFM adds that “Patrick’s denunciation of Fuentes comes after Fuentes met with Defend Texas Liberty PAC leadership, from whom Patrick accepted $3 million.”
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texas GOP chair stays silent on allies’ connections to antisemitic extremists" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Faced with ongoing scandals this month involving his allies' ties to antisemitic extremists, the leader of the Republican Party of Texas has come out strongly — to attack other conservatives who’ve criticized his friends.
For three weeks, Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi has been defiant in the face of calls from members of his own party to cut ties with Defend Texas Liberty leader Jonathan Stickland, who recently hosted avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes at his office for nearly seven hours. And he’s gone after those who’ve been critical of Defend Texas Liberty, a political action committee that is funded by two of the Texas GOP’s most prolific donors.
Separately, Rinaldi is at the center of a parallel controversy involving a group for young conservatives that he recently embraced despite warnings about its leaders’ openly antisemitic views and ties to white nationalist figures.
*[Nick Fuentes is just the latest white supremacist embraced by Defend Texas Liberty]
For some Republicans, the dual scandals have raised serious questions about the party’s willingness to denounce racists — and its leader’s proximity to those who embrace them.
“He has put his friends’ interests above what is in the best interest of the party,” said Mark McCaig, an attorney and chair of the Texas Republican Initiative. “He is more concerned about protecting them and their gang.”
To be sure, Rinaldi was quick to distance himself from Fuentes. The Texas Tribune spotted Rinaldi earlier this month at the office building where Fuentes, an Adolf Hitler admirer who has called for a “holy war” against Jews and encouraged his followers to beat women, was being hosted by Stickland.
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Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi is seen entering the offices of Pale Horse Strategies outside of Fort Worth on Oct. 6, 2023. Credit: The Texas Tribune
Asked about the Oct. 6 meeting, Rinaldi told the Tribune that he had no idea Fuentes was inside and would never meet with him. As for Stickland? Rinaldi said he would wait until more facts came out before commenting on his longtime political kin.
“I’m not going to make assumptions based on what I'm told by a reporter,” he said on Oct. 8.
Since then, neither Rinaldi nor the Republican Party of Texas has commented on Stickland, even as other major figures — including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Kyle Rittenhouse — have issued statements that confirmed the Tribune’s reporting. Nor has Rinaldi responded to concerns from fellow Republicans and some party executive committee members who’ve called for a break with Defend Texas Liberty, which has donated $257,000 to the party since 2021.
Instead, Rinaldi has reserved his ire for House Speaker Dade Phelan, accusing the Beaumont Republican of politicizing antisemitism before demanding his resignation. Phelan has also demanded Rinaldi step down as the party’s leader and give money the Texas GOP received from Defend Texas Liberty to pro-Israel charities.
Since news of the Fuentes meeting broke, Rinaldi has posted or amplified attacks on Phelan or the Texas House on X, formerly Twitter, more than 40 times. He has not, however, publicly criticized Stickland or Defend Texas Liberty at all — even as new information continues to emerge about their close ties to white supremacists.
On Monday, the Tribune reported that, in just the last month, at least five current and former Fuentes associates have worked with groups that are closely tied to Stickland, Rinaldi and Defend Texas Liberty. That includes True Texas Project, whose leaders have sympathized with the racist gunman who murdered 22 people at an El Paso WalMart in 2019, and who are set to host Rinaldi for a fundraiser and softball game this weekend.
On Wednesday, the Texas Observer reported that a swastika-clad neo-Nazi who was spotted handing out antisemitic flyers in Fort Worth this month had previously interned for Luke Macias, a longtime GOP consultant and Rinaldi ally who just replaced Stickland as president of Defend Texas Liberty, according to the group’s website.
And this week, the Tribune reported that the president of Texans For Strong Borders, Chris Russo, has for years been a prominent figure in Fuentes’ racist movement, and has continued to post on anonymous, hate-filled social media accounts as his group —with help from Rinaldi and Defend Texas Liberty — has emerged as an influential voice that’s pushed lawmakers to crack down on legal and illegal immigration.
Rinaldi and the Texas GOP did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.
‘A moral obligation’
The controversies come amid an internecine fight between the state’s far right and the Texas GOP’s more moderate, but still deeply conservative, wing. That strife has exploded into all-out war since the impeachment and acquittal of Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Rinaldi ally who has received nearly $4.65 million from West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris and Dan and Farris Wilks. Those billionaires also fund Defend Texas Liberty and, before that, bankrolled Rinaldi’s career in the Texas House.
Defend Texas Liberty has been one of the most important players in the state party’s ongoing civil war. Campaign finance records show that, since 2021, it has given nearly $15 million to right-wing movements and candidates. The group made headlines this summer after giving $3 million to Patrick, months before he presided over Paxton’s impeachment trial. Defend Texas Liberty also gave $3.6 million to Don Huffines, a former state senator who helped push Gov. Greg Abbott to the right by attacking him on immigration and other issues during last year’s Republican primary.
Meanwhile, the Texas GOP’s far right has continued to embrace groups and individuals that others have warned are a bridge too far. Fuentes was the best-known of those extreme figures; but his visit and the ensuing controversy were punctuated by a separate-but-related, scandal involving the party and white supremacists.
That ordeal dates back to August, when the 66-year-old Texas Young Republican Federation voted to end its partnership with the Texas GOP until Rinaldi — who the group accused of initiating a “smear campaign” and partnering with far-right figures to undermine their newly-elected leadership — was removed from his position.
Things escalated last month, when Rinaldi pushed for the Texas GOP to bring a newly-formed spinoff group into the party despite warnings that its leaders included avowed white nationalists.
The warnings proved to be right: Days after the Tribune first reported on Fuentes’ visit with Stickland, an independent journalist reported that leaders of the new young Republicans group had praised Hitler online, and published photos of some of its leaders outside of an event for Fuentes’ vitriolically antisemitic “groyper” movement.
“There was a time in my life when I hated Nick Fuentes and his white supremacy views,” one of the group’s leaders, Rylie Rae, reportedly wrote on social media last year. “Now I recognize that he is one of the smartest people in our country and we need white nationalism. Oh how the tides have turned.”
Responding to the controversy, the new group’s leadership said in a statement that it “condemns bigotry in all forms” and had removed the individuals in question.
But before that, other young Republicans said they made clear to Rinaldi and the leaders of the new group that they were in bed with extremists. Those concerns were rebuffed, a move that one person said is emblematic of a broader problem and power struggle that has allowed extremists to flourish in Republican circles.
“There is a tendency among the populist right to essentially say, ‘It doesn’t matter how awful the person is, as long as they are on our side,’“ said Matt Wiltshire, finance director for the Young Republican National Federation. “We believe that we have a moral and ethical duty to be uncompromising in our stance that there is right and there is wrong.”
One of those removed was Konner Earnest, who led the group’s Parker County chapter and also recently became involved with the European American Community, a white nationalist group that argues American citizenship should be based on European ancestry.
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/d7f8232dbebbc8c49e23f6ff0c924add/Konner%20Earnest%20TT%2003.jpg)
Konner Earnest outside of the offices of Pale Horse Strategies outside Fort Worth on Oct. 6, 2023. Earnest is an associate of Nick Fuentes and also worked on former state Sen. Don Huffines' gubernatorial campaign in 2022. Credit: The Texas Tribune
Earnest has other ties to Rinaldi and Defend Texas Liberty: He was spotted outside the Fuentes meeting with Stickland, and has appeared in videos for Russo’s Texans For Strong Borders, which has received considerable financial support from Defend Texas Liberty. Earnest has also written anti-immigration articles for Texas Scorecard, a prominent right-wing media website that is financed by Defend Texas Liberty’s billionaire funders.
Rinaldi does not appear to have released any public statement or made any comment on social media about the young Republicans scandal.
Meanwhile, the Texas GOP’s executive committee remains at an impasse over how to respond to the party’s ongoing white supremacist problem.
Last week, after Stickland was quietly removed as Defend Texas Liberty’s president, roughly one-third of the executive committee's 64 members, including Vice Chair Dana Myers, signed a letter saying that the party had a “moral obligation to speak boldly, publicly, and clearly on this matter” and demand an explanation for the Fuentes meeting.
“Fuentes' views and Stickland’s tactics are abhorrent and totally antithetical to the principles of the Republican Party of Texas and to the conservatives who have trusted [Defend Texas Liberty] for the cause of liberty and patriotism,” they wrote. “Whether this was caused by a lapse in judgment, conscious disregard, poor leadership, or a faulty moral compass –– Stickland and [Defend Texas Liberty] must ultimately accept responsibility.”
*..."}:
Since then, the party’s disagreements have continued to escalate in public view, as Rinaldi and his allies remain largely silent on the scandal. Two weeks ago — and after a Tribune reporter reached out to more than a dozen members of the party’s executive committee regarding Defend Texas Liberty — the Texas GOP removed contact information for executive committee members from its website.
The Texas GOP did not respond to a request for comment on the move, which has been publicly blasted as an attempt to keep members from being contacted by the public.
“You don’t stand for ‘we the people’ unless they have access to you,” said Cat Parks, a former executive committee member and vice chair of the Texas GOP. “It’s not like controversy didn’t happen during my tenure.”
For now, it’s unclear what comes next for the Texas GOP and its relationship with Defend Texas Liberty, which released a two-sentence statement saying it opposes Fuentes’ “incendiary” views but has yet to provide any other details on the meeting. Stickland may no longer be leading the group, but his removal is likely cosmetic given that he also owns Pale Horse Strategies, a consulting firm that is used heavily by Defend Texas Liberty-funded groups and candidates.
Members of the party’s executive committee have said as much this week, and reiterated their calls for the party to speak out against Defend Texas Liberty and Stickland.
The Texas GOP “must renounce [Defend Texas Liberty] until a full explanation of the Fuentes meeting is provided, those responsible are held accountable and there’s new entirely new leadership (not just the same players swapping job titles),” executive committee member Rolando Garcia wrote this week on social media.
“Don’t excuse the inexcusable just to spite your political enemies,” he added.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/27/matt-rinaldi-texas-gop-republicans-nick-fuentes/.
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October 18, 2023 rww
- Arthur Delaney @ HuffPost: Jim Jordan Again Fails To Pin Down 217 Votes For Speaker.
- Robert Downen @ The Texas Tribune: Defend Texas Liberty PAC names new president after leader met with white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
- Ron Filipkowski @ Meidas Touch: Man Who Targeted Hillary Voters With False Voting Info Sentenced to 7 Months.
- Justin Horowitz @ Media Matters: Turning Point USA ambassador Morgan Ariel pushes antisemitism, interacts with and defends white nationalists.
- Daniel Villarreal @ LGBTQ Nation: GOP school board candidate caught discussing “fire-breathing” lesbians, “grooming.”
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west Texas A&M University has received a $20 million gift — the largest gift from an individual donor in the university’s history — to create a new institute to promote American values.
The donation is a gift from Amarillo businessman Alex Fairly and his wife, Cheryl. Both graduated from West Texas A&M.
The new university center will be called the Hill Institute, named after the university’s second president, Joseph Hill.
“The mission of The Hill Institute is to encourage reflection upon the importance of ten West Texas, Texas, and American values and, through study and scholarship, promulgate the values among students within the diverse disciplines of the University and the extended community,” a flier for the new institute reads.
The institute’s website lists those ten values: trust; family life; hard work and persistence; regard for others; personal responsibility and free will; compatriotism and patriotism; exercise of virtue; the free and open exercise of faith; personal and civic loyalty; and rugged individualism.
“Ultimately, the goal is to have the work of scholars impact every profession and area of study represented on [West Texas A&M’s] campus through the firmly held and highly esteemed values of The Institute,” the newly created website reads. “A challenge in contemporary higher education is the retreat of disciplines into silos with little common ground from which to produce engaged citizens. The Institute will illuminate the founding values of our nation as embodied in our region as a means of cementing intellectual processes to make the world a better place to live.”
The Texas A&M Board of Regents approved the creation of the institute in February 2022 and the university had been searching for a donor to fund the center since. West Texas A&M President Walter Wendler said he worked with Fairly on crafting the institute’s mission for three years. He said he sees the university and this new institute as a “launching pad for the future of higher education.”
“Higher education is in the need to continually be reshaped, especially now with forces at work that affect every aspect of university life and the students who come here to study [and] the faculty and staff who come here to work who take care of their families,” Wendler said Wednesday during an event to announce the new center. “The enterprise of higher education is being drawn into a universalist perspective, one which says all institutions should all look the same. There are many forces at work that drive us in that direction and it's a mistake.”
Wendler, who has served as the university’s president since 2016, is known for being outspoken about his Christian beliefs, often publishing articles about his faith on his personal website and in messages to the university community.
In the spring, the university's facultyissued a vote of no confidence in Wendler's leadershipafter he canceled a student drag show on campus, which he called “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny.” They accused him of abusing his role as president by running the university based on his own religious ideology and said he has exhibited a pattern of “divisive, misogynistic, homophobic and non-inclusive rhetoric that stands in stark contrast with the core values of the university.”
Wendler emerged from the controversy unscathed. He’s also received early support from a federal judge who is overseeing a lawsuit that a campus LGBTQ student group filed against Wendler in March, alleging he violated their free speech rights by banning the drag performance. Recently, the judge declined the student’s request for injunctive relief, stating that Wendler acted within his authority when he canceled the campus drag show.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who attended the event announcing the donation Wednesday, said he supported the center as a way to bring Texas “panhandle values” to the rest of the country.
“This is the America that all America used to be, it should be again,” Patrick said of the sprawling, pastoral region whose rural counties and smaller outposts have long been a Republican stronghold. “These are American values here.”
The Hill Institute will seek to embed students and faculty members “to better understand how these values impact daily life, create a better community, prepare us for engaged citizenship and shape our nation,” Wendler said. “We want the mission of the Hill Institute to have an impact far beyond our region.”
“Hill scholars” will also share their ideas and insights through regular publications and speaking engagements, according to a press release announcing the institute.
University officials said the institute will be funded through private donations, not state resources.
Alex Fairly, the donor funding the Hill Institute, told the crowd Wednesday that when Wendler approached him to serve on the committee for the university’s comprehensive fundraising campaign, the One West campaign, he was skeptical that his values aligned with those of higher education broadly.
“We wrestled with the decision to give to higher education because we were no longer sure we trusted the direction we saw higher education taking,” Fairly said. “What Texas and America need today is a leadership of intelligence and virtue. Education must take more account of permanent values.”
Fairly said he and his wife were convinced to make their donation because of Wendler, who they believe is leading higher education in the right direction, and the principles of Joseph Hill, who often spoke publicly about the values of the region.
According to the Texas Ethics Commission, Fairly has sporadically donated to local and state Republican lawmakers over the past few years. In 2022, Fairly and his entity, dealOn LLC, donated $100,000 to Attorney General Ken Paxton and $250,000 to Patrick. He has also made smaller donations to House Speaker Dade Phelan.
This year, Fairly and his wife donated $145,000 to the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, a political action committee led by former Rep. Jonathan Stickland. The PAC was a vocal supporter of Paxton after he was impeached by the Texas House this spring and throughout his impeachment trial in the Senate. In June, the PAC donated $3 million to Patrick, who presided over the trial.
At the event Wednesday, Patrick told Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp that he would work with him to get similar institutes at all A&M campuses by the end of Sharp’s tenure.
“Start from here, make this a national policy program because we need leaders in America,” he told the crowd. “We need to turn our face back to God. Stand on that foundation.”
This isn’t the first time Patrick has supported an institute at a public university that had the financial backing of conservative donors.
In 2021, Patrick worked with private donors and university leaders at the University of Texas at Austin to create the now-called Civitas Institute. Originally called the Liberty Institute, the proposed think tank would be “dedicated to the study and teaching of individual liberty, limited government, private enterprise and free markets,” according to draft plans of the center.
Patrick later said the original concept for the center was “shot down” by UT-Austin professors because they wanted to have control of hiring. Faculty who were involved in the creation of the institute told the Tribune that university leaders diverted from the original plans after faculty pushed back against the idea.
https://www.alternet.org/ken-paxton-2662335195/
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no lnx twit
Ken Paxton’s far-right billionaire backers are fighting hard to save him
Robert Downen,Carla Astudilloand The Texas Tribune July 25, 2023
"Ken Paxton’s far-right billionaire backers are fighting hard to save him" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Hours before the Texas House overwhelmingly voted to impeach Ken Paxton in May, a well-funded supporter of the attorney general issued a threat to his fellow Republicans.
A vote to impeach Paxton, Jonathan Stickland wrote on Twitter, “is a decision to have a primary.”
“Wait till you see my PAC budget,” he later added.
Stickland is the leader of Defend Texas Liberty, a political action committee that has donated millions of dollars to far-right candidates in the state. It is a key part of the constellation of political campaigns, institutions and dark-money groups that a trio of West Texas oil tycoons — Tim Dunn and brothers Farris and Dan Wilks — have pumped small fortunes into as part of a long-term crusade to push Texas to the extreme right.
And, until last month, no state politician had received more money from those groups than Paxton, who has in turn used his office to push ultraconservative priorities while declining to defend state agencies in numerous lawsuits filed by groups connected to Dunn and the Wilks brothers, including those seeking to undermine the state’s campaign finance laws.
Now, with the clock ticking toward Paxton’s September impeachment trial before the Texas Senate, Stickland and his far-right friends are fighting hard and spending big to protect their most important ally — and to stave off a major loss amid their ongoing fight for control of the Texas GOP.
Evan Smith, CEO of The Texas Tribune, interviewedTim Dunn, CEO of CrownQuest Operating and chairman of Empower Texans, at The Texas Tribune Festival on Sept. 24, 2016. Photo by Brett Buchanan
Tim Dunn speaks with Evan Smith, former CEO of The Texas Tribune, at The Texas Tribune Festival on Sept. 24, 2016. Credit: Brett Buchanan for The Texas Tribune
The Paxton drama comes at a crucial time for the state’s ultraconservative wing, which has been increasingly criticized by moderate Republicans who have grown weary of their purity tests and attacks even as the state drifts further to the right. The Wilks and Dunn orbit also has been hobbled by a series of divisive, costly — and largely unsuccessful — primary races and the removal of former Rep. Bryan Slaton, whose political life was subsidized by Defend Texas Liberty until he was expelled from the House in May for having sex with a 19-year-old aide he got drunk.
Those losses, coupled with intraparty animus, have raised the groups’ stakes in the Paxton trial.
“The Paxton impeachment could be the most high-profile stumble for the far right of the Texas GOP,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor. “Paxton was their shining star but now looks more like a shooting star.”
The Wilks brothers could not be reached for comment. Dunn did not respond to multiple interview requests or a detailed list of questions emailed to him. Stickland declined an interview and did not respond to questions via text.
An old relationship
Over the past 20 years, Dunn and the Wilks brothers have sunk nearly $100 million into a sprawling mix of nonprofits, political campaigns, think tanks, fundraising committees and websites to advance their far-right religious, economic and anti-LGBTQ+ views.
But their groups were not always so laser focused on the red-meat social issues that they’ve helped thrust into the mainstream of today’s GOP. In the mid to late 2000s, their primary influence came from Dunn through a handful of groups — the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and Empower Texans — that pushed libertarian, small-government economic and tax policies.
As with now, the strategy was simple: Pull the party’s middle further to the right by labeling other Republicans — particularly Joe Straus, the GOP speaker of the House from 2009-19 — as ineffective moderates in bed with liberals to suppress conservative priorities. Those attacks were disseminated through a well-funded media ecosystem to a grassroots base motivated by the election of President Barack Obama, the Tea Party movement, the proliferation of social media and an influx of dark money unleashed by the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Since the beginning, the groups have aimed “to force retirements or defeat moderate incumbents in primaries, really almost to the exclusion of any other strategic goal,” said Matt Mackowiak, chair of the Travis County GOP and a longtime Republican political consultant.
“It’s about convincing incumbents that if they don’t vote as conservatives, then they’ll be put at political risk,” he said.
And the billionaire-backed groups have always liked Paxton.
In 2009, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility gave Paxton, who was then a state representative, the “Taxpayer Champion Award.” A year later, the group hailed him for his bill rejecting Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act. And, ahead of the 2011 legislative session, Empower Texans wrote glowingly of Paxton as he challenged Straus for House speaker, framing the McKinney Republican as a man-of-the-people conservative who was unafraid to confront the House’s effete RINOs — Republicans in Name Only — and their supposed liberal allies.
“This is the first time in modern history when Texans can express their preference on the speaker’s race and involve themselves in it,” Empower Texans wrote in November 2010. “Some in the Austin power elite — including the media — don’t like it.”
State Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, after failing to win the endorsement of GOP caucus members for House speaker on Jan. 10, 2011.
Then-state Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, made an unsuccessful bid for House speaker in January 2011. Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera for The Texas Tribune
Paxton dropped out of the speaker’s race shortly before the vote but a year later was elected to the Texas Senate, where he spent two years before launching his 2014 bid for attorney general. Despite initially trailing in the polls, Paxton defeated the better-funded, establishment candidate Dan Branchin the GOP primary runoff — with help from his West Texas friends.
In what The Dallas Morning News described at the time as an “unusual arrangement,”Dunn and Empower Texans backed a $1 million loan to Paxton that helped narrow Branch’s financial edge and pay for a late TV advertising campaign. Paxton also received a boost from freshmen U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Tea Party darling whose unexpected rise was aided by a super PAC that received $15 million from the Wilks brothers.
One year later, as news broke of Paxton’s indictment for securities fraud, those allies again came to his defense. Previewing the claims they’d make after his 2023 impeachment, Empower Texans insinuated conspiracy theories that framed Paxton as the victim of a witch hunt orchestrated by House Republicans and left-wing activists.
“Time will tell how long it will take for Paxton to clear his name and rebut the politically-charged attacks against him,” Tony McDonald, a longtime attorney for Dunn- and Wilks-connected groups, wrote at the time for Empower Texans. “But will we ever know the true role Republican House leadership played in launching the probe?”
The 2015 securities fraud charges, related to Paxton’s work soliciting investors in Servergy Inc. without disclosing that the McKinney tech company was paying him for the work, have yet to go to trial amid a series of appeals by prosecutors and defense lawyers.
In the years since, a mutually beneficial relationship has continued, with Paxton pushing policies favored by the far right as the billionaires filled his campaign coffers with millions of dollars.
Campaign finance records show that since 2002, Dunn, the Wilks family and their affiliated groups have collectively given more than $2.85 million to Paxton — 6.8% of his total fundraising, and nearly double what he’s received from his second-biggest donor, Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC.Add in the two loans that they’ve backed or given — including one that remains outstanding for $750,000 — and their support tops $4.65 million.
That money has helped keep Paxton afloat in recent years as his legal troubles mounted, approval ratings dipped and some key donors invested elsewhere.
After Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC gave $626,000 to Paxton’s 2022 primary challenger Eva Guzman,Defend Texas Liberty helped lift his campaign, giving him more money than ever and floating him a $750,000 loan. And last month, as Paxton and his high-profile defense team continued to spar with House impeachment managers, Dunn donated another $150,000 to the suspended attorney general’s campaign. Neither Paxton nor his attorneys have disclosed who is paying for his impeachment defense.
Recent financial disclosures also show that in June, Defend Texas Liberty gave $3 million in loans and donations to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who will preside over Paxton’s impeachment trial in the Texas Senate.
Hours after the donations were made public, Stickland again took to Twitter. “This is just the beginning,” he wrote. “Wait till you see the next report. We will never stop. Ever.”
Texas is among a handful of states with no limits on individual political contributions in state races. SinceDefend Texas Liberty PACwas created in 2020, Dunnand Farris Wilks have given at least $14.5 million to the organization. They also helped bankroll Stickland’s career in the Legislature before he took over the group.
The Texas Tribune sent interview requests and lists of questions to Paxton’s lead impeachment attorney, his campaign and two communications firms working on his behalf. None responded. Patrick’s campaign and office did not return requests for comment.
“So too has Ken Paxton”
Millie Black, a political science professor at Collin College’s Wylie campus, said it’s often difficult to gauge the extent to which high-dollar donors impact politicians once they’re in office, particularly on social issues.
But it’s clear, she said, that Paxton’s public evolution from a small-government budget hawk into a red-meat social conservative has corresponded with the Texas GOP’s move to the right, a shift that was influenced heavily by Dunn and the Wilks brothers.
Publicly, “he has not always been so far to the right,” Black said of Paxton, whose legislative career mostly emphasized conservative economic policy. “But as the Republican Party has grown in its conservatism, so too has Ken Paxton.”
Since his election as attorney general, Paxton has used his office to rally behind the ultraconservative social issues and anti-LGBTQ positions favored by his biggest donors and their allies.
In 2017, Paxton pitched business leaders on the controversial “bathroom bill” that would have cracked down on transgender-friendly restroom and locker room policies. And he has routinely issued legal opinions that bolstered priority issues for groups connected to Dunn and Wilks, including “school choice” programs, challenges to Texas’ prohibitions on giving public money to religious institutions and bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
Paxton has wielded power in other ways as well.
“Policymaking is not just what you do, but also what you don’t,” Rottinghaus said. “By ignoring some things and emphasizing others, politicians are effectively reshaping policy. The attorney general … has a lot of ability to shape policy at the margins” as the state’s top lawyer.
A handful of times, Paxton has declined to perform a core function of his office: defend state agencies from lawsuits — including those directly connected to his biggest donors.
In one instance, Paxton declined to defend the Texas Ethics Commission against a lawsuit, filed by Empower Texans, that sought to strip the agency of its core oversight of campaign finance. As a result of Paxton’s decision — which watchdog groups called “rare” at the time — the ethics commission made an emergency, $600,000 budget request in 2018 to lawmakers to pay for private lawyers in the matter.
In a separate lawsuit, Paxton’s office again did not represent the ethics commission afterEmpower Texanshead Michael Quinn Sullivan challenged his $10,000 fine for failing to register as a lobbyist while leading the group in 2010 and 2011. In that case, Empower Texans’ lawyers argued that Sullivan was the victim of a “witch hunt” orchestrated by Straus’ “cronies,” and that he and his group should have been exempt from registering as lobbyists because they were acting as journalists.
Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texans speaks at a conservative grassroots rally for property tax relief and reform at the Texas Capitol on Tuesday. April 16, 2019
Michael Quinn Sullivan, then head of now-disbanded Empower Texans, speaks at a conservative grassroots rally for property tax relief and reform at the Texas Capitol on April 16, 2019. Credit: Juan Figueroa/The Texas Tribune
Those two lawsuits and their subsequent appeals have collectively cost the ethics commission more than $1 million in outside legal expenses, general counsel Jim Tinley said last week. That total is likely to climb if Sullivan successfully petitions for the case to be heard by the Texas Supreme Court.Tinley declined to comment on other questions about Empower Texans, citing pending litigation.
The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but officials have previously said the decisions aligned with the office’s “first obligation to defend the Constitution and the basic rights it guarantees to each and every Texan.”
The commission’s former chair still disagrees.
In an interview this month, Chase Untermeyer said Paxton’s hands-off approach in the Empower Texans lawsuits was upsetting, if somewhat expected given his ties to the group. But even if Paxton disagreed with the agency’s mission, Untermeyer said, he still had a duty to protect it as it carried out its “obligations under the state constitution to pursue” violations.
At one point, Untermeyer said, Paxton’s office stopped enforcing subpoenas issued by the agency — a “particularly appalling” decision that Untermeyer said undercut an investigation into Empower Texans.
“The only thing worse than not being represented by Ken Paxton would have been to be represented by Ken Paxton — because we did not have full faith that he was on our side,” Untermeyer said. “We can understand how the attorney general, for some reason of his own choosing, might not want to represent the ethics commission in a district or appellate court. But to not even support the principle of a state agency, a constitutional agency, issuing subpoenas, was a particular aggravation.”
Paxton has had his own issues with the ethics commission: He has repeatedly been criticized for failing to timely disclose significant campaign donors or the addresses of some properties owned by him and his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton.
In 2016, the agency ruled that Paxton could not accept out-of-state donations to a legal defense fund in his securities fraud case. And last year, the Houston Chronicle found that Paxton had declined to sue hundreds of political candidates and lawmakers to collect more than $700,000 in fines for campaign disclosure violations assessed by the agency.
“Rules for thee, not for me”
For six years, Zachary Maxwell saw firsthand how West Texas oil money slowly reshaped the state’s political landscape — including through the numerous conservative campaigns he helped lead and, later, as chief of staff for formerRep. Mike Lang, the leader of the House’s ultraconservative Freedom Caucus.He also briefly worked for the Empower Texans-affiliated Texas Scorecard as a staff writer.
Maxwell ultimately left that world because of what he said was hypocrisy from the Dunn and Wilks cohort, who he said were almost singularly focused on conservative “chest beating” as a means of pulling the party’s mainstream views to the right and accumulating political power.
“It is rules for thee, not for me,” he said of Empower Texans and its affiliated groups, including Defend Texas Liberty. “They do not care about how Austin is run — they care about running Austin. They care about who can scream the loudest, and usually that ends up being people with the least amount of integrity. And the entire Legislature is sick and tired of it. Nothing is good enough. And the second you get off course, you’re going to get hammered.”
“It’s just exhausting,” added Maxwell, who still works in conservative politics. “But it’s the cost of doing business.”
Maxwell is not the only Texas Republican to express such frustrations. In recent years, prominent conservatives have complained about the groups’ frequent attacks from the right, and the perpetual purity tests that they worry may ultimately push the Texas GOP too far to the extremes.
The backlash was evident during the 2018 primaries, when conservative business leaders, worried about the effects of Empower Texans’ social policies on the state’s business climate, spent more than $3 million to defeat the group’s slate of far-right candidates. Bemoaning the races’ vitriol at the time, one prominent conservative commentator compared the West Texas billionaires to an “oligarchy,” hellbent on destroying anyone who “didn’t get on their knees and kiss the ring.”
“They romanticize the rural Texan,” Brandon Darby, editor of Breitbart Texas, a right-wing news site that had previously employed Sullivan, said at the time. “They wear the hat, the boots and the Wrangler jeans, but their policies actually strangle rural Texas communities.”
Meanwhile, Empower Texans continued its attacks on House leaders, accusing them of being RINOs and sparring over legislation and media credentials that would have given the group better access to representatives during floor debates. The latter conflict came to a dramatic head in 2019, when Sullivan released secret recordings with then-House Speaker Dennis Bonnen that prompted the Republican leader not to seek reelection.
In 2020, Empower Texans officially disbanded after its news blog, Texas Scorecard, was spun off into a new nonprofit that’s led by Sullivan. The website has remained one of the most vocal supporters of anti-LGBTQ and other far-right legislation, as well as candidates bankrolled by Defend Texas Liberty.
Chief among them: Slaton, the former Royse City representative who was removed from office.
Since running for office in 2020, Slaton received roughly $680,000 from Defend Texas Liberty — among the most of any other officeholder besides Paxton and Patrick — and was in turn a reliable bomb thrower and annoyance to House leadership, needling his fellow Republicans even as they passed a litany of conservative bills.
The Texas GOP’s campaign finance records show that in the first week of April — as rumors about Slaton’s inappropriate sexual relationship swirled around the Texas Capitol — the party received a $100,000 donation from Defend Texas Liberty PAC and another $35,000 from Dunn.
State Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, sits at his desk on the House floor in Austin on April 18, 2023.
Former state Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, at his desk on the House floor in Austin on April 18, 2023. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune
Leaders of the party were later criticized for what some said was a muted and delayed response to the allegations against Slaton, a “family values” conservative who often touted his career as a Southern Baptist youth pastor.
The Texas GOP and its chair, Matt Rinaldi, declined interview requests and did not respond to a list of questions last week. In an email, Rinaldi condemned what he said was an attempt to frame Phelan and other House Republicans as the “mainstream in the Party and Paxton, Cruz, Trump, Patrick, and all others in the actual mainstream as a fringe group.”
A party spokesperson disputed the timing of the $100,000 donation from Defend Texas Liberty, saying it arrived March 30 — two days before Slaton allegedly had sex with his aide — but wasn’t posted until April 4 “due to processing times.” Asked twice to provide documents backing that claim, Rinaldi responded that “we can but don’t feel the need to.”
Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi speaks at a press conference at the Capitol on Aug. 30, 2021.
Republican Party of Texas Chair Matt Rinaldi speaks at a news conference at the Capitol on Aug. 30, 2021. Credit: Michael Gonzalez/The Texas Tribune
Members of the House General Investigating Committee — which also launched the inquiry into Paxton this year — later said their investigation of Slaton was hampered by obfuscation from him and members of his staff who refused to meet with an investigator. The staff members were represented by McDonald, the longtime Empower Texans lawyer who, in 2015, wrote that Paxton’s securities fraud charges were the result of a conspiracy orchestrated by House leadership.
McDonald declined an interview request but has previously said the House committee’s “statement that Slaton’s staff refused to cooperate is completely false,” and that “any condemnation of them is unfair, spurious and based on false information.”
New scandal, old tactics
Two weeks after Slaton’s ouster, the chance of also losing Paxton suddenly became real for the far right. As news of the House’s investigation into Paxton broke, Stickland, Sullivan and their allies went on the offensive.
They again blamed the attorney general’s mounting troubles on a shadowy cabal of liberals and House Republicans, and said his strong opposition to President Joe Biden made him a target of the deep state. (The inquiry began after Paxton asked lawmakers to cover a $3.3 million lawsuit settlement with whistleblowers fired from the attorney general’s office after they reported Paxton to law enforcement for allegedly misusing his authority to help a friend, real estate investor Nate Paul.)
Supporters posted about the “coming political war” and made overt threats to anyone who might support Paxton’s impeachment and the “witch hunt” that Sullivan said was orchestrated by Phelan’s “cult.” Occasionally, Paxton responded on social media with a simple “thank you.”
The day of the impeachment vote, Stickland’s PAC sent mass text messages comparing Paxton to twice-impeached former President Donald Trump and urging supporters to inundate their representatives with complaints.
And, in the wake of the 121-23 vote for impeachment, they excoriated the 60 Republicans who voted to advance the 20 articles of impeachment to the Texas Senate, calling it an attack on grassroots conservatives by the “crony establishment” that had been after Paxton since 2015.
A screenshot of a text message sent by Defend Texas Liberty defending Ken Paxton the day before the Texas House impeachment vote.
A screenshot of a text message supporting Ken Paxton sent by Defend Texas Liberty the day before the Texas House impeachment vote. Credit: Phone screenshot
Particular attention was given to longtime Paxton allies and deep-red conservatives who voted for impeachment. After Rep. Briscoe Cain, one of the most conservative lawmakers in the state, said he voted for impeachment out of a duty to due diligence, Sullivan compared Cain to Pontius Pilate, the enabler of Christ’s crucifixion.
Since then, Dunn and Wilks-backed groups and individuals have continued to attack virtually every aspect of the Paxton impeachment process — and fellow conservatives who supported it. In June, Defend Texas Liberty paid for billboards accusing Rep. Glenn Rogers, R-Graford, of having “joined 61 democrats to impeach Ken Paxton.”
Rogers, who fended off a well-financed 2020 primary challenge by Farris Wilks’ son-in-law, responded forcefully, noting the deep-pockets relationship between Dunn, Farris Wilks and Stickland, the “big puppeteer” who does “their dirty work.”
“They hide behind their money and a pious front in order to create chaos and division in the Republican party,” Rogers wrote on Facebook. “Get ready for a barrage of misrepresentations, deceit, and outright lies financed by these ‘fine Christian gentlemen.’”
Longtime political observers expect the acrimony to worsen in the coming months as Stickland promises expensive primary challenges to more-moderate incumbents next year, and Defend Texas Liberty continues to receive heavy backing from West Texas — including a new, $3.5 million infusion from Dunn and Farris Wilks in June.
TheTexas GOP, chaired by Rinaldi, a former representative who was bankrolled by Dunn and Wilks, has gone all-in on attacking House leadership, accusing Phelan and others of subverting the will of voters by impeaching Paxton, and claiming that it is part of a broader plot against grassroots conservatives.
That schism is likely to deepen ahead of an expected October special legislative session on contentious “school choice” legislation and the 2024 primary elections, said Mackowiak, the Travis County GOP chair. He said it would be extremely difficult for Defend Texas Liberty and its allies to mount serious challenges to every Republican who approved Paxton’s impeachment. Mackowiak also said he doubts the Paxton impeachment vote will be the primary, animating issue for voters next year.
But he said Defend Texas Liberty could attack incumbents from the right by packaging together their votes on school voucher-like programs, Paxton and bills on social issues that did not make it out of the House during the last legislative session. And while losing Paxton would be a blow to that ultraconservative wing of the Texas GOP, Mackowiak does not believe that it would change the faction’s tactics, which he said have been proven successful by the state’s gradual turn to the far right over the past decade.
“It’s a proxy battle,” he said. “And, in a way, their movement is bigger than it’s ever been.”
Disclosure: Collin College, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Texas Public Policy Foundation and University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/24/ken-paxton-impeachment-dunn-wilks/.
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