Rick Green: 0:04
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture is WallBuilders, where we take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Speaking of a hot topic, an impeachment is a very hot topic first one in something like a hundred years in Texas and our good friend Phil King, actually your state rep, David and Tim, he's our state senator, I'm sorry, it used to be your rep for years. Now you're state senator and so he had to sit through this whole impeachment trial. He'll be with us in a few minutes to talk about his perspective of what happened.

David Barton: 0:41
Yeah, this is a state impeachment trial is garnered national attention. President Trump's been tweeting about this. Ken Paxson is one of the more conservative attorney generals in the country has been very aggressive in going after unconstitutional things with by administration, so that's why it has a national focus. But at the same time, an impeachment trial is not a criminal trial. You're not necessarily trying to see if there's a crime. It can be a political trial in the sense that you may have committed things in office that don't rise to the level of a crime, but they're worth getting you out of office. So this is a way of protecting office. They don't happen all that often, and this has been a significant one. It ran for a couple weeks here in Texas eight, 10 hours a day in the Senate, and so it's been a long thing. They've finally reached a conclusion on it, and our good friend Phil King that you mentioned he was right in the middle of that. He helped set up the rules for the impeachment in the Senate. He's one of the leading guys on that, and so it'd be real good to get his perspective on this national event.

Rick Green: 1:35
Well, he's dialed in right now. Phil King, state senator from Texas. Phil, thanks for joining us today, man.

Phil King: 1:40
Well, thanks, Rick. It's always good to talk to you.

Rick Green: 1:44
Well, man, I'm hoping that that you're going to get to get at least one night at home. I know you've been in Austin most of the year, just got done with the impeachment trial over in the Senate, but also had the special sessions it's been a long 2023, but David had. Tim said man, let's get Phil on and get an update both on the trial that you sat through but also just how you're feeling about things in Texas and across the country. So we always appreciate talking to you and we'll just start there. Man, you just got done with the trial. Ken Paxton acquitted and you were one of the senators that had to sit through. What was it? Two weeks the trial lasted.

Phil King: 2:22
Yeah, it was full two weeks. It was a little bit interesting in terms of just for all of us who are used to moving around and being very active, to have to sit there on a rigorous schedule and leave your phones in your desk and all of those things. But yeah, long trial.

Rick Green: 2:40
Yeah, long trial and of course you know regardless, I've got friends on both sides of this thing all over Texas and definitely a lot of crazy stuff that happened and you know it seemed like once it was all said and done. I mean, first of all I want to say thank you to you and to Governor Patrick and everybody just on the Senate side for taking it so serious and doing it in a thorough way. And I think biggest complaint I heard and what little bit I paid attention when I was traveling across the country, was just that the house kind of threw it all together and it was definitely didn't seem like it was done right on the house side, but you guys took it very serious on the Senate side. Before we even talk about the details or anything, what was that like? Just the first time in 100 years, you guys dealing with a historic moment and you know you guys as and gals, as senators just kind of going okay, you know we're about to do something that hadn't been done in our lifetimes. That'd be kind of different.

Phil King: 3:34
Well, it was, and you said, serious, and we did take it very serious, regardless of the what the allegations were. It was the first time that the Texas House that sent the Texas Senate impeachment articles on a statewide elected official since 1917. And, of course, the first thing we realized is Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Rick Green: 3:54
That was Phil. That was the last big pandemonium, that was Spanish flu. Is this like a coincidence or what we got? Is it like a part of the virus? I'm just kidding man. It's like that's when the last big virus was too. This is weird. I'm kidding. Go ahead, man.

Phil King: 4:05
Long time ago. Maybe there's a weird relationship, I don't know long.

Tim Barton: 4:09
COVID or something.

Phil King: 4:12
But? But the first thing we realized is we have no rules on how to do this. We have no process, we have nothing to go by. So the Lieutenant Governor, who's president of the Texas Senate, and Patrick he appointed seven of us to a committee to to work through this and we spent weeks very intense work. We looked at all the previous impeachments across the state, we looked at ones in other states, we looked at the federal ones, we read the federalist papers, we went back, looked at the US Constitution, Texas Constitution, supreme Court cases and we put together what I think are really some very elegant rules and a procedure that made sure it was a fair, open process, and we also wanted it. We wanted two other things. One, we wanted future legislatures, whenever this happened, to have something that could go and pick up and say this is how you do it. The other thing we wanted is we wanted this to be the most transparent public trial in American history with regard to an impeachment and every document that was filed, even a letter by either party. Those were posted live as soon as they came in, long before the trial started. The articles of impeachment, the transcripts, are currently being posted online. We live streamed with very high quality live stream. The entire process. Every vote was public. The press we made tremendous accommodations for the press to have access. We wanted it. If we were going to have to do this, we wanted it to be the most professional, transparent process so that the public would know, however it came out, whatever decision we reached. Hopefully they would come to the same conclusion if they watched the presentation of the evidence and all the arguments as we did.

Rick Green: 6:04
Man, it sounds like y'all basically said, okay, what did Adam Schiff do in Congress? We're going to do the opposite. I mean seriously, it was like. I mean you literally did this the way that I think constituents should be happy with and feel like, like you said, you brought them along with you so that they could understand whatever the decision was going to be in the end, and I think that's laudable for sure.

Phil King: 6:24
Now you mentioned whether the House sent it to us in good order or not. One thing we found quickly was that traditionally in Texas and other places when there is an impeachment action in a House, you know the way it is the House whether it's in Congress or any other state probably, but certainly Texas the House acts kind of like a grand jury and they gather evidence, they conduct investigations and then they develop what we would call indictments in criminal law but articles of impeachment in an impeachment process. And for example, in 1975, there was an impeachment of a district judge in Texas and even for a district judge there were 21 public hearings. There were 32 sworn in live witnesses. The House assembled over the Texas House over 175 exhibits and got their package together, presented it to the House, let the House mull over it for a significant period of time, study it and then brought it to a vote to see if they would develop articles of impeachment this time for whatever reason not trying to impugn anybody, but for whatever reason. The Texas House had a very confidential process with investigators. Then they had one public hearing where no sworn testimony was taken, although they did have the investigators come and give four hours of very thorough report, and then they took it to the House a few days later and the House had a couple of hour hearing and it passed over there. So I don't know whether it was because it was the end of the legislative session or whatever, but it was more of an expedited process in the House. And so it came to us with very serious allegations. But, as we ultimately learned, the evidence to support those allegations was really not pressed.

Rick Green: 8:21
Yeah, at the very least, it seemed incredibly rushed at the end and that was the complaint I heard from a lot of our mutual friends and colleagues over there that just felt like there was no real due process and they didn't get a chance to really study what was going on before they had to vote on it on the House side, and so you guys did the exact opposite on the Senate side, and I don't know how much of the detail we want to get in. I was going to ask you because I didn't know. I mean it seemed like the turning point in the public's eyes, at least just from what I was watching, in terms of people's responses on social media, and everybody's got an echo chamber in social media. So that's just my social media. But was that when it came out and became kind of a theme that you know Ken Paxton doubted the FBI, questioned the FBI, thought we should investigate the FBI, that when people realized that because I didn't know that part I mean I had no idea about that part that all of a sudden there was a real shift was like, yeah, like we're all questioning them at this point in the way that they've handled, you know, a hunter and versus the J6 guys. So did that feel the same on the floor, or was that something you all already knew and it wasn't really a factor that just seemed like a big one to me? But again, very much from the outside.

Phil King: 9:28
Right. Well, there was a developer, a very prominent developer, who had felt like he was being improperly investigated by the FBI and by the Texas Department of Public Safety. I can't tell you about the FBI. I can tell you the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers have the highest level of ethics and I say that as a retired police officer myself highest level of ethics and conduct of any law enforcement agency in the state of Texas. Now, that said, we all have our questions about the FBI, but in any case, the allegation for, basically, that Ken had been using his office to assist this developer in inappropriately trying to block a federal and state investigation, a grand jury investigations, and also that he had been bribed to had his condo remodeled by the payment by this developer, and then also that the developer had gotten the attorney general's mistress a job when she was fired because the fact that she was having an affair with the attorney general became public knowledge, and which she was fired and he did give her a job. I will tell you that if any of those allegations regarding abuse of office or bribery or quid bro quo had been proven up, I would have impeached him or anyone in a heartbeat. But at the end of the day, although there were things that took place that I absolutely do not approve of and I think were misguided, there was nothing criminal and proven to be proven and there was nothing that rose to the level of removing somebody from office over the will of the voters who had just put him in six months earlier or, in this case, I guess, 11 months, 10 months earlier. And the bottom line if you're going to forcibly remove somebody from office that the voters have put in place and, frankly, a lot of these allegations were known during the election but if you're going to put, remove somebody from office, you better have really strong evidence and better, better be something really, really, really serious. The allegations were very serious but through the trial, some of the witnesses fell apart, documents didn't show up that we had expected to be presented and at the end of the day, the evidence was just not there to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had committed criminal acts or other acts meriting impeachment.

Rick Green: 11:56
And that was the best summary I have heard yet, because too many people, I think, are trying to make this an all or none. If you don't support impeachment, then you condone everything that Ken did and obviously a fallible man, just like all of us and obviously big mistakes that were made, bad decisions, in fact, I was public about supporting Louis Gomert in the primary against Ken this time around, even though I've supported Ken strongly over the years because of those things, and so people have tried to make this you're either all in or you're all out, and that, of course, made y'all's job even harder, because you're literally having to make your decision based on the facts and also long time friends and had served with him and all of those kind of things. So, man, what a horrible situation.

Phil King: 12:37
Well, yeah, we've been friends for over 20 years. But the other thing that was very difficult for us was that there was a campaign that's the only way to frame it, but together were. I have no idea how much money was spent on mail and text messaging, advertising and robocalls, getting people to call our offices, to come to our offices to tell us to vote in support of Ken Paxton. And there was a little bit on the other side too. I had a mail piece delivered to my district telling me to vote against him, and of course I was. I had took an oath as a judge and a juror to make a decision, hand on the Bible, to make a decision based only on the law and the facts presented in the courtroom. And so, in personal relationships and the first, I had to walk in there with a black slate and then, although I certainly appreciate and honor everyone's First Amendment right and to call and to tell us their opinion about it. In reality I had to take all of that out of my mind and literally I would kind of go through a constant mental exercise. I'd walk back into the office at the end of the trial day and we had long days and they would say 284 people called a day and emailed and said you know, a quick Ken Paxton. And there's this many were in the district and this many are in Texas, and I would literally just have to take that and set it over on a shelf and not take that into consideration, because if I had done so, I would have been using political considerations to determine innocence or guilt and I had taken an oath to make a determination based on evidence and law only, and so that was difficult and it was uncomfortable for me when I would run into people and they would catch me or friends would call or whatever, and they would say hey, phil, I want to talk to you about this Ken Paxton's deal and say, please understand, I appreciate your interest and everything else, but I'm in a judge's last year slot right now and I can't talk to you about it. Plus, there was a gag order and everybody was very understanding about that. But there definitely was a lot of political pressure on members and I know that a lot of them are feeling fallout from that now and the vast, vast majority of that political pressure was from the side telling us to acquit Ken Paxton.

Rick Green: 15:06
It's funny man. I purposely and for our listeners. Phil and I have known each other for 25 years.

Phil King: 15:12
26 years we went into the legislature as freshmen together.

Rick Green: 15:15
We met on the campaign trail back in 1997. I mean, so I purposely have not talked to you in like a couple of months, man. I didn't even want to put you in that situation and anyway. So it's great to talk to you today and catch up and honestly, man, I was praying for you because of everything you just said. I mean, it's a tough situation and I also was thinking, though, for you it was a little bit of an advantage being a lawyer, being a former police officer at least that procedural mindset was you were able to put your head around and do so. I think that probably helped the whole process, having somebody like you in there. And a part of that I got it, man. I told you I'd only keep you eight or 10 minutes if I could. I never wanted to be Jerry Springer, phil Donahue or any of those guys. But I know our listeners are wondering and I have to just ask you how uncomfortable was Angela this whole time? That was the most awkward part of this whole thing. She couldn't even vote right, but she had to be there. Was that a topical conversation? How did y'all get around that part? And for our listeners, that's the wife of Ken Paxton. They've reconciled, they're together, they're working on all that, but she's a senator. So if your own husband is the one on impeachment trial.

Phil King: 16:22
That's weird. And here they are calling as a witness the former mistress and things like that, oh wow, and although she ultimately didn't testify. She pled the fifth and didn't testify. as my understanding, it was done in a pretrial or in an off-camera conference, but anyway, she ultimately refused and was not able to testify, but it was extremely uncomfortable and because Angela is a friend student, we serve with her and she sits 15 feet from me on the Senate floor. But I will tell you, the difficulty was too. I'm talking about procedure and law. Under the Texas Constitution it says that all senators will sit on the jury. The other side of that was in the Texas Constitution. It says no senator may vote on anything in which they have a personal interest. Well, obviously her husband was a personal interest and also there's not been a case in Texas history where someone got to sit as a judge or a juror on a case in which their spouse was one of the parties. And so we had this constitutional dilemma Does Angela get to participate in deliberations? Does she get to vote? What does she get to do? And the decision was made over the Paxson's objections and I understand that that she would be able to sit on the floor as a juror, but she could not vote and could not just made in the in the negotiation, in the deliberations of the jury, and that seems something of a compromise. It also, because she was seated as a juror, it took 21 votes instead of 20 votes to convict Ken. Now, ultimately, that many were not needed or that extra vote was not needed, but it was kind of a compromise within the Constitution where we had a conflict.

Rick Green: 18:20
Wow, yeah, it felt like I wasn't alive when it happened. But just reading the Texas history books, you know, I felt like it's Ma and Paul Ferguson. We're back to the. You know the weird days of the couple, you know basically trading the seat on the in the governor's mansion. Anyway, crazy, man, crazy. I feel like we could do a soap opera on Texas legislature at this point. I know for you and for your colleagues, y'all just have to be glad it's over. You know, as you said earlier, the election in most people's minds had kind of settled all this stuff, and so you know now that, now that we're past it, do you think you guys are still going to have to do another special session this year, are you? Are y'all? Are y'all talking much about that at this point?

Phil King: 18:59
Have you heard anything? Yeah, governor's going to call us in in a few weeks on school choice, which Texas is way behind on getting passed. Yeah, I also on teacher pay. We're also trying to get him to put the border on the on the agenda in a special session. That government we can only consider the things the governor puts on what they call the call, as you know, and so we're trying to get him to call us back for border security as well, the. But I'll tell you there is. You know, you said the trial is over and it really feels like it's not, because there's still a lot of tension. I think you're in the house and the Senate, which is is is regrettable, and there's tension between some members of the house with each other and senators, people, and then you've got a lot of members of the public that are talking about well, because if someone voted one way or the other, we're going to go find primary opponents and it just creates a lot of tension that we need to work through and get. Get all back unified and on the same page and go get our jobs done.

Rick Green: 20:03
Yeah, amen. Well, phil, God bless your brother. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for joining us today and keeping us updated. Look forward to getting you back soon.

Phil King: 20:10
Alright, thanks anytime.

Rick Green: 20:12
Alright, folks. This has been days of our Texas lives. Stay with us. We'll be right back with David at Tim Barton.

Tim Barton: 20:25
Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don't know much about American history, or even heroes of the faith, and I know oftentimes for parents we're trying to find good content for our kids to read and if you remember, back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith hall of fame where they outlined the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that, as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity and our faith as well. I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called the Courageous Leaders Collection, and this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright Brothers, and there's a second collection called Heroes of History, and this collection you'll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, friends the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it's a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at WallBuilders.com. This is www.WallBuilders.com.

Rick Green: 21:28
We're back here on Wildbusters. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Phil King for joining us today and keeping us updated on what happened there in the Texas Senate. David Tim obviously we all know Phil well and knew he would be measured and thoughtful and take this seriously, so it's great to get this update from him.

David Barton: 21:45
Hey Rick. First off, I wonder how many people under 40 know what days our Texas life even refers to.

Rick Green: 21:52
True, yeah, yeah, as the Texas Senate turns. Yeah, nobody knows those. Yeah, yeah.

Tim Barton: 21:58
Yes, I was thinking more of the old and the restless, by the way, guys, old soap operas.

Rick Green: 22:03
Ouch, ouch yeah.

David Barton: 22:05
Yeah, oh man, yeah, there you go. You know it was significant that this whole thing went without a single piece of sworn testimony being taken in the house. That is so amazing to me that they go into a legal process looking at removing someone from office and there was no sworn testimony in anything in the House of the Senate. That's amazing.

Tim Barton: 22:26
And, on top of it, nobody from the House gets to interview the witnesses. So not only are they not sworn in, this is all done in private, closed door meetings that members of the House aren't even privy to. They don't get to ask questions, they don't get to hear first-hand testimony, and so everything is at least secondhand, if not thirdhand, where they're having these individuals who did the investigation come and report this. The whole thing just didn't smell right. And the fact I mean Rick, you pointed that a little bit in the interview the fact that it wasn't until Dade Fielin shows up, arguably drunk, on the floor of the house as he's slurring his words he's not making sense. He's saying and doing things You're like I think this guy's drunk and Ken Paxson calls him out for being drunk and says this guy shouldn't have that position for being drunk, and then, a couple of days later, these articles and impeachment drop against things that we've already known and filled that a good job of cautiously walking that line, of not saying look, ken Paxson has done some very immoral things, he's done some very bad things, he's dirty in some areas, but it's similar to like the Donald Trump scenario with the January 6th, the accusations that he incited the riots and he caused all this to happen. Well, donald Trump is certainly not the most moral person in all settings, but he's not guilty of what you're accusing him of right now. That was very similar, in my estimation, to Ken Paxson and really in my mind, interesting parallels where, with Donald Trump, you know, for years they accused him of Russian collusion and there was no evidence. And they're saying we have all this evidence, we've seen it, he's guilty of it. And then finally, when the evidence comes to light, you realize that's not at all what happened. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite. It's a very similar scenario in my mind what happened with Ken Paxson, where they're saying we have all this evidence, all this evidence, all this evidence and even, as Phil said, they were expecting that there were going to be some smoking guns they're presented with and when they finally get the evidence packet, they realize this is not really evidence at all. They have not done their due diligence and, as Phil mentioned, had they done something slightly different, it could have led to their being an impeachment. But the way the House set this up, it was not set up for success. And then for Dade Field and the members of the House. To blame the Senate and be fresher to the Senate seems really silly. Also, as Phil mentioned, it could be really interesting as they're now going into some special sessions trying to get some very significant things done in Texas with some school choice issues that they're now very divided, a lot of hurt feelings and so much of it was unnecessary based on how Dade Field ran this impeachment procedure in the House. It's a bit of a mess, but really really significant what Phil said and how they walked through this process.

Rick Green: 25:05
Did you hear Phil rattle off all of those things that they did at the last one 100 years ago? I mean, I couldn't believe that, all of the House, the time they spent the interviews I mean everything you're talking about, Tim that they didn't do yeah, what a difference.

David Barton: 25:18
And, by the way, when Phil said they were all sworn in on a Bible, I'll point out it was the Bible of Sam Houston. They were all sworn in on Sam Houston's Bible.

David Barton: 25:26
So it was really historic. Sam Houston obviously is a centric. Before the last impeachment hearing Sam Houston wasn't impeached but nonetheless. But I do think, Tim, with what you're saying, that a lot of this is going to backfire on the speaker. He was already under a lot of fire. This is. I think he thought this would get attention off of him. He has now had major counties in the States censure him. He as speaker has not moved Republican conservative things. They had very far. 32 states have school choice and Texas is not one of them. How can that be? So there's a number of things that he's on a hot seat for and I think this only adds to it, which maybe that means we'll get some good things passed in Texas, because we certainly need some. And he's the speaker of the house has been the biggest impediment we've had, including we talked earlier even that 10 Commandments bill. It appears that he killed that earlier this year when he didn't want the 10 Commandments up in Texas classrooms. So a lot of things he's been in the way of.

Rick Green: 26:17
Alright, folks, we're out of time for today. Special thanks to Phil King for joining us today and keeping us updated. You know, that's one thing when we cover these hot topics, sometimes we get to talk to the people that are on the ground, right there in the middle of it. So that was, that was kind of neat to have Phil on with us today. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders.