MCKINNEY — A judge in Collin County took up a proposed agreement Friday to unseal Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s divorce records after media organizations challenged their secrecy as he campaigns for the Senate.
In a change of course, an order signed by the Paxtons’ attorneys said they gave consent to allowing full public access to the file. The agreement still requires approval from a judge in Collin County, who is scheduled to take it up at a hearing at 9 a.m. Friday.
The agreement, obtained Thursday by The Dallas Morning News, says “all court records and filings, and any other materials previously sealed in this case, are hereby unsealed.”
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The case was sealed this summer at the request of Paxton and his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, shortly after she filed for divorce. Angela Paxton cited her husband’s infidelity as being among the reasons for wanting to end her 38-year-marriage.
Ken Paxton’s attorneys had asked the court to keep the records sealed, calling media efforts to open them “unprecedentedly broad and intrusive.”
The legal team has argued divorce files are not automatically public, even for elected officials, and are often exempt from open-records standards. The team also warned that opening the file would undermine long-standing privacy protections in family law.
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The media and watchdog coalition that sued for access includes Campaign for Accountability, Dow Jones & Company Inc., The Washington Post, Hearst Newspapers, ProPublica, The Texas Lawbook, Texas Newsroom, The Texas Observer and The Texas Tribune.
The coalition has said that because Ken and Angela Paxton are elected constitutional officers, the need for transparency is heightened, especially for records that could involve finances or conduct that constituents have a legitimate interest in knowing.
The Campaign for Accountability said Paxton’s efforts to keep the records sealed raises questions for voters. “Paxton’s constituents can fairly wonder what he is so desperate to hide,” the group wrote, calling public access to the records “clearly in the public interest.”
The dispute comes as Paxton challenges Sen. John Cornyn in the March Republican primary. Cornyn has attacked the attorney general on character issues but has not directly commented in the divorce proceedings. At the same time, Cornyn’s campaign has framed the matchup as a broader test of character.
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Paxton was first elected attorney general in 2015 after having served as senator in the same district that his wife now serves.
He was acquitted of all charges in a 2023 Senate impeachment trial on misconduct allegations. Among the revelations from the proceedings was that Paxton had engaged in an extramarital affair.
Under state law, his senator wife was required to attend the trial but was barred from voting on guilt or innocence under rules adopted by her colleagues shortly before the trial began.
Angela Paxton later said the marriage became “insupportable” due to adultery and conflict. She said she attempted reconciliation with her husband but later determined that “in light of recent discoveries, I do not believe that it honors God or is loving to myself, my children, or Ken to remain in the marriage.” She didn’t elaborate on the “recent discoveries.”