Texas AG Ken Paxton Stomps Into DC, Wishes He Hadn't
https://abovethelaw.com/2024/04/texas-ag-ken-paxton-stomps-into-dc-wishes-he-hadnt/Start none, be none, etc.
By LIZ DYE
on April 15, 2024 at 2:34 PM
Watching Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton get his ass handed to him is always a good way to start the week, especially when it happens in epically karmic fashion. And so let us all enjoy this smackdown delivered by Judge Amit Mehta who sits on the US District Court in DC.
What is the Texas AG doing in a federal court located in the East Coast liberal swamp? you are wondering.
Well, it started back in November of 2023 when the non-profit news outlet Media Matters published a story by reporter Eric Hananoki showing ads for companies like Apple and Oracle next to explicitly Nazi content on Twitter. Elon Musk flipped his shit, accusing MMFA of a fraudulent attack and threatening to file a thermonuclear lawsuit against it. He did indeed file a lawsuit, although it was less thermonuclear than thermos full of chocolate milk that got lost in the trunk three months ago and somehow rolled out in the Texas heat. Theres a pending motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, but Twitter did manage to get themselves in front of that reactionary loon Judge Reed OConnor, so who even knows.
In the meantime, Republican AGs assembled to defend poor, innocent Elons sacred honor by using their offices to harass MMFA. Paxton sent a civil investigative demand, essentially a subpoena, to MMFA in DC, and MMFA moved to enjoin the subpoena, first in federal court in Maryland, where Hananoki lives, and than in DC. And that is how they all wound up in front of Judge Mehta, where Paxton responded that he could not be enjoined because the federal court in DC lacked personal jurisdiction over him.
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Ford_Prefect
(8,169 posts)ancianita
(37,876 posts)More in the article:
"...Judge Mehta ... pointed out that the very act of hiring the process server in DC established minimum contacts with the district sufficient to trigger personal jurisdiction.
First, the court finds that Defendant invoked the benefits and protections of the Districts laws when he caused service of the CID in the District of Columbia through a professional process service,' the court noted, adding that the AG shouldnt have come bigfooting into the nations capital if he didnt want to litigate there.
Second, Defendant reasonably should have anticipated being hauled into court here because the CID established a future course of dealing with a D.C. resident, Judge Mehta continued, noting that the Fifth Circuit had found personal jurisdiction over the New Jersey AG when he subpoenaed a Texas ghost gun manufacturer, and turnabout is fair play.
Hananoki and MMFA submitted supporting affidavits saying that the Texas AGs menacing investigation had caused it to nix stories on Musk and Twitter, chilling their speech in violation of the First Amendment.
His issuance of the CID had the effect of chilling Plaintiffs expressive activities
nationwide, which deprived D.C. residents access to Plaintiffs reporting, Judge Mehta wrote, adding that Paxton made it even clearer that his goal was to punish MMFAs speech as opposed to protecting Texas residents when he went on Newsmax and encouraged other state AGs to do the same.
The court granted the TRO and denied Paxtons motion to dismiss. And since Missouri AG Andrew Bailey is seeking to enforce a subpoena which he himself described as virtually identical, it probably spells doom for that effort as well."
angrychair
(9,515 posts)This are state AG using the power of their office to harass or intimidate people at the behest of a billionaire or just because they can.
Another recent example is when Paxton demanded a list of all trans youth that has used services at Seattle Children's Hospital in Seattle, Washington, decidedly not in his jurisdiction.
That these Republican state AGs are repeatedly wandering off the reservation, abusing the power of their office for personal agendas is not a good sign of things to come.