Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in talks with his former deputies over retaliation lawsuit

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal team is negotiating a settlement with three of the four former employees who filed a whistleblowing lawsuit against him for being fired after they accused Paxton of criminal acts.

Lawyers for Paxton in a joint statement last week with attorneys for Mark Penley, David Maxwell and Ryan Vassar, Paxton’s former deputies. asked the Texas Supreme Court to stay the whistleblower’s case to give the parties time to negotiate a settlement. Lawyers wrote that they “actively participated in the discussion of the settlement agreement” and mediation is scheduled for Wednesday.

Lawyers for the fourth plaintiff, Blake Brickman, opposed the motion in their own filings and urged the court to proceed with it. This was first reported by The Dallas Morning News.

The high-profile case was another black eye for Paxton, a Republican whose troubles with the law dogged him for most of his tenure as attorney general and occasionally alienated him from other state GOP officials. Paxton was charged with securities fraud in August 2015. The case is still pending, and Paxton denies any wrongdoing. Most recently, Paxton was sued for professional misconduct by the Texas Bar Association last year for misrepresenting that he uncovered new evidence to file a lawsuit challenging the 2020 presidential election results in four states. Paxton claimed the lawsuit was politically motivated and denied wrongdoing.

The case stems from an October 2020 allegation by eight former senior Paxton aides who told authorities that the Attorney General had abused his office and accepted a bribe in exchange for helping a political donor with his business affairs. The informants also claimed that Paxton, who is married, helped the donor because the donor gave a job to Paxton’s alleged girlfriend. These reports led to an FBI investigation. No federal charges were filed. All eight employees were either fired or dismissed from the prosecutor’s office after filing a complaint.

In November 2020, four of these former employees filed a lawsuit against Paxton, claiming they were fired in retaliation. They demanded reinstatement and compensation for lost wages, as well as payment of future lost earnings and compensation for non-pecuniary damage and suffering.

Paxton argued in state court that he was exempt from the Texas Whistleblower Act because he was an elected official and not a public servant, and that he fired them not in retaliation for their complaint, but because of a personnel dispute. The Court of Appeal ruled against him and allowed the case to move forward. But last January, Paxton filed an appeal with the Texas Supreme Court.

Lawyers for Paxton and the three plaintiffs said in a joint statement that the court should adjourn the case until Feb. 9 to give the parties an opportunity to resolve the issue outside the courtroom.

Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brickman’s attorneys, Thomas Nesbitt and William T. Palmer, said in their filings that Paxton’s team had put the case on hold for two years and “there is no reason to drop this case.” They argued that the other plaintiffs were seeking a pause only because they intended to settle the case, but because Brickman was not involved in these negotiations, his claims still needed to be resolved quickly.

“Brickman respectfully asks that this court reject the request for leniency,” they wrote. “This results in further unnecessary delay in the consideration of Brickman’s claim.”