WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Cornyn seized Thursday on an Associated Press story that Republican primary challenger Attorney General Ken Paxton, with wife Angela Paxton, claimed three houses as their primary residence on mortgage paperwork.
Those inaccurate statements allowed the couple to improperly lock in low interest rates, according to the AP report.
“It’s a violation, in all likelihood, of state and federal law,” Cornyn told reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday.
He acknowledged the core point of a reporter’s question about who should investigate such a case when the alleged perpetrator is a sitting state attorney general.
“When you have the chief law enforcement officer breaking the law, who enforces the law?” Cornyn said. “And I guess the answer in this case would be the feds.”
Paxton did not respond to requests for comment emailed to his campaign and the attorney general’s office.
Cornyn’s campaign has cast the story as the latest example of character issues dogging Paxton, accusing him of lying to banks to amass a number of properties and become wealthy on a government salary.
Paxton has disclosed an interest in eight properties on recent personal financial disclosure forms filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.
Polls show Cornyn trailing Paxton in the March Senate primary, which will likely be one of the most watched contests in the nation. Paxton has been a darling of the GOP’s most conservative activists who typically are influential in the primary process.
In order to change the trajectory of the race, Cornyn needs to show Republican voters, including those who aren’t fans of his, that Paxton is unfit to serve.
Cornyn pounced on the AP story, even as many Republican leaders didn’t comment.
It’s unclear whether the latest Paxton controversy will resonate with voters, or fade away.
President Donald Trump has accused two of his political foes — U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York Attorney General Letitia James — of committing mortgage fraud in similar, though far less serious, circumstances.
The Democrats have long been targets of Trump’s ire for having led various investigations into his conduct as president and as a business executive.
The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation of James. It received a criminal referral for Schiff last week from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Asked if federal officials should investigate Paxton over the mortgage applications, Cornyn said he wouldn’t give the Trump administration direction on the matter and that he would hate to have anything distract from investigations of James and Schiff.
Cornyn said he was surprised Paxton has declined to answer questions about the matter.
“Maybe there’s a good explanation but I think so far he’s not giving one,” Cornyn said.
James’ attorney, Abbe Lowell, urged the Trump administration to investigate Paxton instead.
“If this administration was genuinely interested in rooting out fraud, it appears they should stop wasting their time on the baseless and discredited allegations against the New York Attorney General James and turn their attention to Texas,” said Lowell, a prominent Washington attorney whose past clients include Hunter Biden and Ivanka Trump.
In an interview Thursday, Schiff told The News he was unfamiliar with the details of the allegations against Paxton.
Schiff alluded to the political firestorm Trump is trying to tamp down over calls from the right and left for his administration to release records from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation.
“I can only tell you that the president’s baseless attacks on me are a transparent effort to distract from the Epstein files problem he has,” Schiff said.
Many Democrats expect Paxton to emerge as the Republican nominee for Senate, and they believe his candidacy and the controversies surrounding him will give them an opportunity to win the general election.
Former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas is seeking the Democratic nomination in the race, as is former NASA astronaut and retired Air Force Col. Terry Virts.
Neither Allred or Virts responded to requests for comment.
– Staff Writer Karen Brooks Harper and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
