Phelan Admits He Missed Failure Signs
as GOP Senator Fuels Jury Conspiracies
Capitol Inside
September 23, 2023
As GOP Speaker Dade Phelan admitted that he'd failed to read an array of "warning signs" that pointed to failure, a Republican state senator who voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton's raised the specter of corruption in the Texas Senate jury process that ended with a vote to acquit last weekend.
Hancock poured fuel into a conspiracy theory that Phelan hatched in the immediate wake of the verdict when he accused Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of rigging the verdict in the immediate fallout from the trial.
Hancock - a former House member from North Richland Hills in the Fort Worth area - told the Houston Chronicle in an interview that the anti-Paxton jurors were "extremely close" to impeaching him when deliberations ended on Friday night last week. But then some Senate Republicans flipped overnight mysteriously - according to the Hancock narrative - before voting to acquit the AG the following morning. But the veteran suburban lawmaker made no attempt to clarify the troubling suspicions that he floated in the piece.
Hancock is one of only two Senate jurors who can they based their decisions exclusively on a thoughtful preponderance of the evidence. The other 28 senator jurors all voted with their political parties. Hancock said he believed the evidence was clear and convincing - and he based his vote on that and God's wisdom - a claim that all of the senators on both sides of the aisle can make.
The innuendos in Hancock's assertions create the impression - whether unintentional or calculated - that a half-dozen Senate Republicans or more may have been bought off or changed their positions in unison as a result of other devious reasons that had nothing to do with the merits of the case. In an arena that Patrick controls with a titanium fist, the natural suspicion will be that senators for the GOP voted to let Paxton off because Patrick ordered them to do so. Hancock offered nothing to substantiate the suspicions that the newspaper interview perpetuated.
Phelan praised Hancock this week for his defiance. But the House speaker also acknowledged that he would have realized the ending of the historic trial was inevitable if he hadn't failed to read the tea leaves that pointed to doom for the House case against Paxton from the outset. Phelan listed some of the things that he missed in an an editorial post-mortem on the case in the Beaumont Enterprise.
The speaker noted that Patrick had received $3 million from Paxton's wealthiest supporters at the same time he vowed to be a fair and impartial judge in the court of impeachment. That information became available in July. Phelan tried to pin some of the blame on a "halfhearted" gag order that Patrick imposed in a move that prevented House members from trying to explain their votes to voters in their districts. Phelan accused Patrick of caving when he ruled that Paxton and former girlfriend Laura Olson did not have to testify at thew trial.
"In hindsight, no one should be surprised," Phelan wrote in the hometown newspaper opinion piece. "The warning signs were there."
But Phelan argued that people who are questioning or criticizing the House case now are simply playing a game of second-guessing. "So, for the armchair legal strategists opining on what should have been done differently, I’d remind them there is nothing else that could have been done -- the fix was in from the start," the second-term speaker contended.
The House case was fraught with problems that the chamber's leaders and lawyers still have yet to recognize. But Phelan could have shut the impeachment process down and spared fellow House Republicans from a vote they could cost some their seats if he'd realized that failure was inevitable like he does now.
Phelan wasn't the only one who were caught off by a verdict that was predictable in the eyes of people watching the trial through an objective lens. The editors at the state's largest newspapers appeared to be historically clueless after failing to examine the case with any sense of detachment and commitment to impartiality. The legendary lawyers that the House enlisted to sell their cases appeared equally as oblivious as House managers and the biggest papers with the largest staffs. Their readers thought Paxton was going down as well based on what they heard and read.
For the sake of setting the record straight, the Associated Press did a very credible job of presenting the story fairly. Some editors at smaller newspapers that relied AP were not surprised the verdict.
Capitol Inside predicted the outcome accurately during the trial's first week. The web site analyzed the 10 top reasons why Paxton would emerge victorious two days before the final vote. The column proved to be a summary of defense lawyer Tony Buzbee's final argument. But House leaders either ignored the warnings that we articulated here throughout the trial or were unaware of them. They only believed what they wanted to hear.
Hancock has been a portait of courage in an upper chamber where Patrick controls the Repubicans and tells them how to vote. But Hancock's attempt to create suspicions about GOP colleagues may leave the impression that got he played by Patrick and other senators who seemed to be wavering as part of the appearance of impartiality that the lieutenant governor sought to maintain until a speech at the end made it clear where he stood.
Hancock spent two years in the Patrick doghouse after a split on power grid bill after Winter Storm Uri in 2021. He's trying to blow it up now - and whether he's been naive about the impeachment process or not - he may never be electable again in a GOP primary as a consequence.
Hancock has been Governor Greg Abbott's closest ally in the Senate since the falling out with Patrick. But he can't expect the governor to bail him out in light of Abbott's attempt to stay out of the fray as the safest possible course.
more to come ... |
