Ken Paxton Caught Using Taxpayer Funds for Hundreds of Vacations

Senate candidate Ken Paxton took nearly 1,000 business trips during his tenure as Texas Attorney General, costing taxpayers millions of dollars along the way. Only one in six of them actually had to do with work.

A new report from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune shows that Paxton has taken almost 1,000 trips out of state since 2015, accompanied by Texas police each time at a cost of $3.3 million to his constituents. His security detail alone cost $24,000 a month, while his predecessor Greg Abbott’s cost $7,400 a month. Of those 1,000 trips, research only linked 138 of them to actual business. In fact, Paxton didn’t even record them as such.

Paxton took 53 trips to Florida, 24 trips to Utah—where his family trust owns properties—and 19 trips out of the country, all on the taxpayer’s dime. Paxton did not offer any specific explanation for his lack of business records for the trips.

“Throughout his career, Ken Paxton has faced numerous security threats stemming from his courageous work as Attorney General fighting on behalf of the people of Texas,” said his office in a statement. “Those threats are a direct result of him taking on the cartels terrorizing Texans and some of the nation’s most dangerous violent criminals.”

Beyond being a blatant misuse of public funds, especially given how many trips he took to his properties, this is a sign that Paxton cares more about his political office and its perks than he does about his actual constituents, who are paying for those perks.

“If you’ve got all these extra trips, it becomes ethically and morally problematic,” former National Association of Attorneys General executive director Chris Toth told ProPublica. “The ethical question is whether a legitimate security function has effectively become a taxpayer-funded subsidy.”

Paxton has been followed by crises of his own making for the entirety of his time as attorney general, as well as his candidacy for Senate. From his indictment and suspension, to his alleged affair and subsequent divorce, and then his controversial, leak-filled Senate campaign, the GOP couldn’t have chosen a weaker candidate to field against James Talarico in Texas to defend their Senate majority.

Katie Miller, the wife of American deportation czar Stephen Miller, has reignited the convivial traditions of Washington’s elite by throwing grandiose bashes at the military base where her family abruptly moved. But there’s a searing reason why the MAGA couple sticks to hosting at home: They’re not welcome anywhere else in town.

A tell-all published Thursday by Vanity Fair revealed the glitz and glam of Miller’s over-the-top parties, which have at times included donkeys, food trucks, hibachi chefs, a mechanical bull, and dozens of famed guests. 

It’s not uncommon to find nearly all of the presidential Cabinet in attendance, either. Frequent partygoers include the Rubios, the Hegseths, the Burgums, as well as FBI Director Kash Patel and his fiancée, Alexis Wilkins. The high-flying guest list has sparked jokes that the Trump administration might need a “designated survivor” to outlast Miller’s soirees, according to one regular attendee who spoke with Vanity Fair.

But whereas the Capitol wives of old would throw bipartisan get-togethers to bridge the divides of Washington politics, the Millers appear to be hiding from their detractors. Sequestered at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall—where they moved to escape the protests plaguing them in their old neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia—the Millers have found a way to revel and play away from public ire.

“They need to do something to blow off steam because they’re not welcome in public,” another party guest told the magazine. “They can’t go to any venue without being assaulted. They have to do this stuff in Camelot.”

But accepting an invitation from Katie Miller doesn’t necessarily imply a fondness for the couple. At least one longtime Trump ally told Vanity Fair that Stephen Miller’s despotic reputation is a part of the calculation.  

“I’ll say I love her publicly, but the truth is I can’t fucking stand her,” the ally said. “But if she asks you to go on the podcast, or come over for dinner, you say yes, because Stephen Miller is the second-most powerful person in the world.”

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin blamed Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Thursday shooting of an unarmed man on Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s words rather than the agent’s actions.

“I wanna push back on a couple things. The Mayor yesterday did a press conference.…He said that ICE ‘has killed more of our neighbors than they claim to have saved.’ That’s a direct quote from the Mayor last night,” Mullin said with anger in his voice. “Just for a record here: Right now ICE has in detention 258 illegals that are wanted for murder charges just in New York alone.… [the mayor’s] words are dangerous, and incite hostility. It doesn’t help.”

Mullin points to Mamdani’s view on ICE—which the vast majority of Americans share—as harmful rather than the violent actions of ICE itself. On Thursday, ICE shot and wounded 28-year-old Dominican man Oscar Belgal in the neck while he was driving with a 5-year-old child in the backseat in New York City’s Marble Hill, discharging seven rounds at Belgal. ICE claims he “weaponized” his car against them after they boxed him in. Mamdani unsuccessfully negotiated for Belgal’s release.

According to Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Belgal was rushed by plainclothed ICE officers with their guns already drawn.

“They wore construction vests and masks that concealed their faces. There was no reasonable way to identify them as ICE agents,” Mamdani said.

Mullin’s comments were not well received.

“His words are dangerous and incite hostility—says the man in charge of the masked, armed, thugs violating Constitutional rights, and attacking and killing people in the streets,” Executive Director of the Campaign for New York Health Melanie D’Arrigo wrote on X.

At least 40 people have been shot by ICE since the start of Trump’s second term, with 11 of those being fatal.

Nothing Mullin or anyone from DHS leadership says should be taken seriously. Whatever statistics Mullin spouts are easily outweighed by the images Americans have seen of masked, disguised federal agents roaming their streets, terrorizing and killing their neighbors. ICE agents dressed in construction gear ambushing a man and firing at him seven times with a child in the car in the middle of the day is absurd, and Mullin has no real justification for it—leading him to deflect to Mamdani.

President Donald Trump is still going after Federal Reserve Commissioner Lisa Cook.

In a presidential memo Wednesday, Trump announced that he’d set up a committee to oversee an investigation into whether Cook had made false statements in connection to one or more mortgage agreements.

“As President, it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law,” he wrote.

Of course, Cook isn’t really Trump’s subordinate. In June, the Supreme Court blocked Cook’s removal, finding that the government had not afforded her due process. The ruling temporarily preserved the Federal Reserve’s independence.

But that hasn’t stopped Trump from trying to oust Cook. In August, White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino informed her that the Trump administration was once again “considering” removing her from her position.

It’s been more than a year since Trump first claimed that Cook—the first Black woman on the Federal Reserve board—had committed mortgage fraud by having two primary residences. Cook refused to step down and sued, stating that “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so.”

Notably, Trump’s own mortgage agreements appear to match the same criteria his Department of Justice has used to go after Cook, as well as Trump’s other perceived enemies, former Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell, Senator Adam Schiff, and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump said the new committee will meet next month to “consider the evidence and allegations against Governor Cook.” Cook has not been charged with any crime.

Republican Representative Mike Collins cannot seem to rise above his staffers’ Nazi reputations.

The Georgia representative practically drowned under reports of his team’s ties to extremism during his first debate against Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff Thursday, unable to bat away the various white supremacist connections within his orbit.

“Mike Collins has brought dishonor to our state through his personal bigotry and his widely documented ties to white nationalists,” Ossoff said in his opening remarks.

At least four of Collins’s former staffers and aides have been accused of extremist affiliations. They include Collins’s former chief of staff Kip Talley; former digital director William Paul (the son of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul); and a former intern, Preston Parra, who has frequently shared Ku Klux Klan and Nazi images to his personal social media account, including an image of himself clad in the white supremacist group’s hooded uniform.

“You hired half the Third Reich to staff your office,” Ossoff remarked at one point.

But the hate bled even closer to home: CNN revealed in July that Collins’s son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, was a white supremacist influencer who had shared vitriolic, extremist messaging across the internet.

Collins, however, could not seem to confront the allegation head-on without blaming his Democratic opponent.

“That’s my family. The craziness that Jon Ossoff has been spewing out there—I actually had a person put in jail this weekend because he not only wanted to kill my son-in-law but he wanted to kill me,” Collins said when asked directly about his son-in-law’s social media activity. “I’ve condemned racism, antisemitism, hate. I don’t care where the source is, and I tell him that too. It’s wrong.”

Collins then made a false equivalence between his son-in-law’s hateful messaging and Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, complaining that Ossoff had not condemned either.

Ossoff’s response: “Imagine running for the U.S. Senate while neo-Nazi propaganda is disseminated to an audience of millions from your home. That’s Mike Collins.”

The Democratic incumbent also railed against Collins’s own track record, recalling when Collins “cheered on” a group of young men that harassed a Black woman at the University of Mississippi with monkey sounds, and that Collins himself had “amplified neo-Nazi propaganda.”

“If John Lewis were marching today,” Ossoff said, “Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club.”