Name: Second whistleblower who accused Texas AG Ken Paxton of corruption has been fired
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Second whistleblower who accused Texas AG Ken Paxton of corruption has been fired

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateAUSTIN — A second whistleblower who accused Attorney General Ken Paxton of public corruption has been fired, potentially exposing the state to liability for illegal retaliation, the Houston Chronicle has learned.Blake Brickman, hired in February to be Paxton’s deputy attorney general for policy and strategic initiatives, was fired on Tuesday, according to a former high-ranking state official and documents reviewed by the Chronicle.Brickman, a Dallas native who had recently served as chief of staff to former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, declined comment. Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Brickman is at least the second of seven Paxton accusers to be fired. The Texas Tribune that Lacey Mase, former deputy attorney general for administration, had been terminated. At least one of the whistleblowing aides has been placed on leave by Paxton’s office and another resigned to take a different job.Brickman, Mase and five other top Paxton aides made an official complaint to law enforcement on Sept. 30, then wrote him a letter accusing him of multiple violations of law, including “abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses.”More for youPaxton, a Republican, has called them “rogue employees” who sought to impede a legitimate investigation and made false allegations against him.The aides of using his office to benefit his friend and donor Nate Paul, an Austin real estate investor whose home and offices were raided last year by the FBI.Paul, who gave Paxton a $25,000 campaign contribution in 2018, has complained vociferously that he was treated unfairly and illegally by state and federal law enforcement. Those complaints reached Paxton and eventually led the attorney general to launch an investigation.The probe proved to be the final straw for the whistleblowers, prompting them to report the attorney general to law enforcement and complain that Paxton was using the “criminal process” to help his donor. Earlier this month, Paxton on the investigation after Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore distanced her office from it.The firings of the two whistleblowers are raising eyebrows from employment attorneys. Under a unique provision of Texas law, a state agency is presumed to be retaliating against a whistleblower if a termination occurs 90 days or less after the whistleblower reports the violation to law enforcement.Both Brickman and Mase were fired less than three weeks after they took their concerns about Paxton to the authorities.“I’m really shocked that they terminated any of these people. Those folks obviously did everything they could to protect themselves against retaliatory discharge,” said Dave Feldman, a labor lawyer and former Houston city attorney. “That’s just an invitation for disaster at the courthouse.”Feldman, who represented special prosecutors over legal fees stemming from their pursuit of unrelated criminal charges against Paxton, said the attorney general’s office could be hit with both actual and punitive damages.Houston attorney and employment law expert Joe Ahmad said the firings are “so extreme and so flagrant” that he doesn’t see “a lot of judges letting Paxton have a pass.”“This seems like a pretty transparent attempt to intimidate potential witnesses against him and prevent the evidence from coming to light,” Ahmad said, “which is the whole reason we have a whistleblower statute in the first place.”This is not the first time Paxton has faced allegations of wrongdoing. As a former state representative and senator, Paxton has been incidents ranging from failing to disclose his interest in a company doing business with the state, which he said was inadvertent, to taking a $1,000 Montblanc pen from a metal detector at the Collin County Courthouse, which he called an innocent mistake.Then in 2015, just months into his first term as attorney general, Paxton was indicted on felony securities fraud charges stemming from his failure to register as an investment adviser representative and allegations that he lied to investors in a tech startup company. Paxton has maintained his innocence and says he is the victim of a political witch hunt.The case, delayed by procedural fights, is still pending.jay.root@chron.com

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateAUSTIN — A second whistleblower who accused Attorney General Ken Paxton of public corruption has been fired, potentially exposing the state to liability for illegal retaliation, the Houston Chronicle has learned.Blake Brickman, hired in February to be Paxton’s deputy attorney general for policy and strategic initiatives, was fired on Tuesday, according to a former high-ranking state official and documents reviewed by the Chronicle.Brickman, a Dallas native who had recently served as chief of staff to former Kentucky Gov. Matt...

Second whistleblower who accused Texas AG Ken Paxton of corruption has been fired

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