Exclusive | Ken Paxton Partied in Dubai With Fugitives Ahead of High-Stakes Texas Senate Race

Party with fugitives in Dubai and Trump still puts his thumb on the scale for him. That is the whole party now. Not law and order, not family values, not the flag pin morality theater they ran on for forty years. Just whoever is useful. And before anybody tells me the WSJ is exaggerating, ask yourself why the Attorney General of Texas is vacationing with people who fled the country instead of answering for whatever they did. My parents came here legally, waited years, paid fees, got fingerprints taken, and this is the standard for the people writing our laws. Paxton has been under indictment for years, the state party still kisses the ring, and now the midterms are being wagered on him. Tell me again about the party of personal responsibility.

The man is out partying with fugitives in Dubai and the President still decided this was his best bet in Texas. That tells you plenty about both of them. I voted for Trump twice and I will say out loud what a lot of folks my age are thinking. The party keeps asking us to hold our nose and vote for whoever they hand us, and every cycle the bar drops a little lower. Ken Paxton has been under one cloud or another for years now and none of it ever sticks because the base treats every allegation as a hit job. Maybe some of it is. But when you are photographed in Dubai with people on the run, you don't get to call it all a witch hunt. Republicans spent a generation saying character counts. I would like to hear somebody in leadership say it again.

A trip to Dubai is not a scandal, and sharing a room with people who later turned out to be fugitives is guilt by proximity unless the story shows Paxton knew who they were or did something for them. The standard should be the same one we demand everywhere else: an accusation is not a finding. Texas Republicans have watched Paxton be investigated, impeached, and then cleared by voters again and again, and the same media class keeps rerunning the playbook. If there is documented wrongdoing, it should be examined on the evidence. A party photo is not evidence. Republican primary voters know his record and picked him anyway, and the Journal calling it a "risky bet" for Trump says more about the paper's preferences than about Texas.

Wells I'll be doggoned, the Wall Street Journal diggin up dirt on a Texas feller fer goin to Dubai an hangin round with who knows who. Sam, Trump picked Paxton cuz the man actually fights the libruls an the border an dont fold like them RINO fellers always do. Fugitives is a big word fer a party pitcher, an I aint seen no proof Ken knowed who was who in the room. Papers been callin every Trump pick scandal plagued fer ten years an they keep winnin anyhow. Texas aint gonna vote fer some Democrat over a Dubai trip, no sir.