Ken Paxton is the Attorney General of Texas. Recently, seven of his top deputies submitted information to the AG’s Human Resource department accusing their boss of corruption. It is hard to over-state how extraordinary that is. Assistant AG’s are not liberal. They are generally careful and conservative. It is also obvious they reported the apparent violations at the risk of their continued employment. Weeks later, AG Paxton has now fired two of those whistle blowers, Blake Brickman and Lacy Mase. See Texas Tribune report.

The most senior aide and whistle blower, Jeff Mateer, resigned. Mr. Paxton placed two other whistle blowers on leave. It is remarkably bad legal advice to fire whistle blowers a few weeks after they blew the whistle. Call that whistle blowing 101. As I have told clients, it is bad for the person to get fired, of course, but the employer, who here is Ken Paxton, is handing them an excellent lawsuit. Indeed, Ken Paxton described the seven top aids as “rogue” employees. Yes, that is a very helpful comment for those seven in their whistle blower lawsuits. AG Paxton needs better legal advice.