How Ken Paxton Fabricated “Horsesh*t” Case Against a Texas Mosque

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton concocted a securities fraud case as part of a sweeping crusade to target the state’s growing Muslim community.

A nine-page memorandum reviewed by Texas Monthly outlined all of the ways that the state government could thwart the construction of the East Plano Islamic Center, or EPIC City, a large housing development and mosque outside of Dallas.

The memo warned that “foreign adversarial interests” might be seeking to “abuse” and “exploit” Texas, and “undermine our communities from the inside,” Texas Monthly reported Monday. The memo had no letterhead, signature, or date but was disseminated to different agency heads by members of Abbott’s office and his advisers. Sure enough, the memo’s language has since reappeared in press releases announcing official inquiries from a range of state agencies, including the Texas Funeral Service Commission, Texas Workforce Commission, and the Texas Rangers, among others.

Travis Iles, then-commissioner of the Texas State Securities Board, had a meeting in March 2025 with Daniel Mittnacht, a political adviser; Trevor Ezell, Abbott’s general counsel; and Caleb Gunnels, an assistant general counsel. The group went over the memo, and after the meeting, Iles assembled a team of six career regulators and attorneys to investigate whether EPIC City’s investors were being told enough about the project, Texas Monthly reported.

Iles’s investigation found that EPIC City’s fundraising didn’t seem to have anything to do with securities at all. Investors in EPIC City had purchased units that would guarantee them the opportunity to purchase property lots at a discounted price—not securities that would passively derive profits.

That’s when Paxton got involved. In October 2025, Paxton’s office issued a press release alleging that EPIC City’s developer had “flagrantly and undeniably” broken securities laws—without ever discussing the matter with agency officials. Iles quickly realized that Paxton’s office was expecting him to provide the pretext for a securities-fraud case.

Iles was pressured by Mittnacht, Ezell, and Gunnels to refer the case to Paxton’s office. Eventually, he did, but he declined to say that EPIC City’s developers were selling securities, and he made clear that he had not reviewed the attorney general’s supposed evidence. Iles even suggested that Paxton’s office should sue under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, rather than pursue securities-fraud charges.

Paxton was undeterred. He announced a securities-fraud lawsuit against EPIC City’s developers on December 5, 2025. Fox News reported that Iles had claimed the developer “sold securities without meeting registration or exemption requirements,” and had referred the case to the attorney general “after identifying ‘flagrant’ violations.”

“Horseshit,” Iles wrote in the subject line of an email the next day. In the body of the email, he included a link to the Fox News article and his assessment of the case: “Corrupt.”

In a press release on December 8, 2025, Iles said that the assertion the EPIC City’s developers were selling securities was “a wholly false statement” that had been wrongly attributed to him by Fox News. Shortly after, he was asked to resign. He quietly stepped down as commissioner and left the agency in April 2026.

President Donald Trump has privately expressed his distaste for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan.

Axios reported Monday that the president “didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic” about the plan, which Democrats and Republicans alike have panned as heinous and barbaric. Trump told another aide that it “might not happen.”

This is a 180 for the president, who was all-in on the public execution just last week. “Absolutely, I approved,” he said then.

Now, after a wave of bipartisan backlash, that tune has changed.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Senator Thom Tillis, and Representative Adam Scott were a few of the Republicans who also expressed their opposition to livestreaming Hasan’s execution.

“The concern would be that it would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists,” Johnson said in a CBS News interview over the weekend. “I wouldn’t be watching it if it was aired.… [but] that’s outside of my lane of course.”.

“But I need to tell the White House what some of my colleagues think about that, and not everybody’s in favor of the idea.”

“Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting,” Senator Thom Tillis said Thursday. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”

“I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” Representative Adam Scott chimed in the next day.

Hasan, a 56-year-old former Army psychiatrist from Virginia, killed 13 soldiers and wounded 32 others when he attacked the Texas military post in 2009. His execution date is set for December 3.

Even Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson disapproves of the Trump administration’s planned live execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan.

Johnson made his position known during a CBS News interview over the weekend.

“The concern would be that it would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t be watching it if it was aired … [but] that’s outside of my lane of course. But I need to tell the White House what some of my colleagues think about that, and not everybody’s in favor of the idea.”

Hasan, a 56-year-old former Army psychiatrist from Virginia, killed 13 soldiers and wounded 32 others when he attacked the Texas military post in 2009. Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the Pentagon’s plans to livestream Hasan’s execution by military firing squad.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said at the time.

Multiple Republicans expressed their distaste for the decision.

“Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting,” Senator Thom Tillis said Thursday. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”

“I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” Representative Adam Scott chimed in the next day.

Hasan’s execution date is set for December 3. It is unclear what platform, if any, will agree to livestream it.

President Donald Trump’s midterm campaign rally blitz has him down in the dumps.

During the initial leg of his nationwide tour of half-full high school gyms, the president has been in a “foul mood,” one person with knowledge of his behavior told The Washington Post Monday.

Trump is still speaking in rooms that are packed with supporters—seeing as he’s purposefully touring in deep red areas—but this time around, the venues are smaller, and the vibe is different. Trump’s speaking events don’t feel so much like pep rallies as they do stops on a farewell tour.

Trump is a lot less popular now than he was the last time he hit the campaign trail. The president has even become a liability to some Republican candidates. Ahead of his visit to Syracuse on Friday to support the New York Republican gubernatorial candidate, conservative radio host Bob Lonsberry urged him to cancel, according to the Post. “Stay away, Mr. President,” he wrote on social media. “The last thing Bruce Blakeman needs is a visit from you.”

The Post reported that Trump “combines political strategy with his personal preferences,” jumping between races that need a boost and just stumping for his buddies. His team has also struggled with finding venues of appropriate size and security level, as well as accommodations for the president. “He does not like to stay overnight except at his own properties,” the paper found.

Plus, Trump is 80 years old now, and he’s slowing down. And perhaps it’s beginning to sink in just how close to impeachment he really is, should Democrats regain control of the House and Senate.

Mark Mitchell, an independent pollster and former Trump supporter, told the Post that if the president isn’t impeached following the midterm elections, it’s not looking likely that he’ll hit the campaign trail again.

“It’s the last time he’s really going to be able to do this in full force,” said Mitchell. “A 30-day blitz of the country to do these rallies again when he’s the most unpopular president—it just doesn’t really make sense.”

Texas attorney general and Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton was asked to explain the constant, controversial leaks coming from a September campaign event. He doesn’t think they matter.

“There have been now five audio leaks from a private fundraiser you attended on September 24 published by various media outlets,” Fox News host Alica Acuna asked Sunday. “Are you concerned that they all came from the same, and are you figuring out who did it? But then also, it raises some flags … over your thoughts, publicly and privately, over the president and Washington.”

“Look, I’m not worried about it at all,” Paxton replied. “You can look at my record, you can look [at] what I’ve done over the last 12 years. I’ve supported President Trump, I love President Trump. We’ve worked together on many many issues, he’s been at work extremely hard to help me get elected. And I really appreciate him.”

“Just because they were able to clip a few things doesn’t mean that’s actually what I meant. So let’s just go back to the record, not this little game that James Talarico has played the whole time, which is ‘let’s not talk about Ken Paxton’s actual record’.… Let’s muddy the water and try to trick people into believing he’s something that he’s not, which is a real Texan.”

Paxton is framing direct quotes that he said to his own supporters in confidence as a “little game.” The reason he has to justify his relationship to Trump is because he himself was critical of the president.

In previous leaks from the event last month, Paxton called Trump a drag on his campaign and said Trump’s war on Iran was raising prices and making it harder for him to campaign. He also claimed that Washington, D.C. was controlling his campaign from afar, and told people depending on federal benefits programs to “suck it up” and prepare for cuts. All of this makes him sound much more like a Never Trump Republican than the loyalist he claims to be.

Talarico—who was born and raised in Texas—is currently virtually tied with Paxton ahead of the November midterm elections.