Ken Paxton became the first Texas attorney general in state history to be impeached by his own party in 2023. Now running for US Senate against Democratic nominee and Texas state Rep. James Talarico, his record of alleged corruption—seemingly ignored by Republican primary voters—is back in the spotlight.
End Citizens United—a grassroots campaign finance reform organization—just named him to its 2026 Most Corrupt Politicians List, citing a pattern of putting personal interest over his constituents. Less discussed: the growing bill Texas taxpayers are covering for it.
Three separate reckonings—a state audit, a court judgment, and years of legal invoices—put the total north of $12 million. And it’s still rising.
That total comes when adding together figures that have each been separately reported by the State Auditor’s Office, the Texas Newsroom, and Travis County court records.
A Texas state auditor’s office report released in March 2025 found the state spent just over $5.1 million preparing for and conducting Paxton’s 2023 impeachment trial. The Texas House, which brought the case, accounted for roughly $4.4 million of that—the bulk of it paying outside attorneys and investigators. The Senate spent about $435,000, and the attorney general’s own office reported nearly $230,000 in expenses.
Separately, Paxton’s office paid outside law firm Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith nearly $700,000 to defend against a whistleblower lawsuit filed by four former top deputies—the same case that helped trigger his impeachment. The Texas Newsroom obtained the invoices through a public records request in 2024; combined with smaller invoices to other firms, the total topped $700,500. That spending is separate from, and in addition to, the impeachment trial costs.
The underlying whistleblower lawsuit itself has cost the most. Four former deputies—Blake Brickman, David Maxwell, Ryan Vassar, and Mark Penley—sued Paxton in 2020 after they were fired for reporting him to the FBI over bribery allegations tied to Austin real estate investor Nate Paul. In April 2025, a Travis County district judge ruled Paxton’s office had violated the Texas Whistleblower Act and awarded the plaintiffs $6.6 million.
Paxton initially appealed, then dropped it in July 2025—making the judgment final. But the Legislature still hasn’t appropriated the money to pay it. Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the unpaid judgment is accruing roughly $1.2 million in interest until lawmakers fund it, whether in a special session or the next regular session in 2027. As of April 2026, the judgment remained unfunded.
That means the taxpayer tab could grow well past $6.6 million before a dollar goes out the door.
Added together—$5.1 million for the trial, $700,000 in outside counsel to fight the whistleblowers, and the $6.6 million judgment—Texas taxpayers are on the hook for more than $12.4 million tied to Paxton’s misconduct. That figure doesn’t include the accruing interest on the unpaid judgment, or the original securities fraud case that predates his time as attorney general, when he served in the Texas House.
Meanwhile, Paxton’s own finances have grown. A New York Times review published in July 2026 found Paxton and his trusts own at least 15 properties worth roughly $9 million, including Utah resort condominiums purchased during his US Senate primary campaign. You can look at the full list of Paxton’s homes, compiled by Courier Texas, here. Forbes has estimated his overall net worth near $13 million. Neither report alleges wrongdoing in how the properties were acquired, and Paxton’s campaign has not provided a full public accounting of his finances. His salary as Texas attorney general is $153,000 a year.
Paxton’s office and campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story by press time.
