![\"Aaron](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Ritz-Cracker.jpg\")
Aaron Reitz, nominee to be an Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice, speaking at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 26, 2025. Credit: Michael Brochstein\/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
The night before Aaron Reitz was supposed to start his new job at the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office, he got an ominous call from one of his future colleagues telling him not to show up.<\/p>\n
Since graduating law school three years before, Reitz had aspired to join the agency, which had made a name for itself waging partisan legal fights<\/a> against the Obama administration. In fall 2020, he\u2019d finally been hired under Jeff Mateer, Attorney General Ken Paxton\u2019s top deputy, but now, he was suspiciously sidelined.<\/p>\n And then the news broke. The day before Reitz was supposed to start his new job, Mateer and other senior officials had reported Paxton to the FBI <\/a>accusing him of bribery and other abuses of office.<\/p>\n Reitz knew Mateer, a prominent religious liberty attorney, and considered his conservative legal credentials to be unimpeachable, his character \u201cbeyond reproach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Paxton, meanwhile, operated under a cloud of indictments, misconduct probes and allegations of infidelity, his tenure marked by high-profile departures and agency scandals \u2014 even before these new allegations.<\/p>\n Reitz\u2019s mentors advised him to stay out of this latest conflict, even if he had to find a different job. He showed up anyway, climbing through the power vacuum to an insider role helping investigate the whistleblowers\u2019 claims on Paxton\u2019s behalf. After poking around, Reitz said he quickly knew where his loyalties lay.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember talking to Paxton, I said, \u2018Look, I\u2019m all in here. I\u2019m with you. I think you\u2019ve just been done dirty, dirtier than any politician I can recount, other than Donald Trump,\u2019\u201d Reitz told The Texas Tribune.<\/p>\n It was a decision that proved prescient. In the years since, Paxton has shaken off scandal after scandal. He won reelection; survived impeachment<\/a>, indictment<\/a> and a federal investigation<\/a> into Mateer\u2019s allegations; and even facing allegations he cheated on his wife<\/a>, a popular state senator, is gunning to unseat longtime GOP Sen. John Cornyn.<\/p>\n Reitz\u2019s loyalty, offered at the lowest moment of Paxton\u2019s tenure, has been rewarded handsomely. He rose to lead Paxton\u2019s most high-profile litigation, trying to overturn the 2020 election<\/a> and undermine the Biden administration. He was appointed to the Department of Justice under Trump, and now, with Paxton\u2019s endorsement, is seeking to become Texas\u2019 next top lawyer.<\/p>\n Reitz believes the nation is at war, a mentality forged as much in those early days at the attorney general\u2019s office as on the battlefields in Afghanistan. The threat is leftists; their allies, moderate Republicans; the battlefield is the courtroom; and the only entity strong enough to hold off these forces of evil is a fully empowered Texas Office of the Attorney General.<\/p>\n \u201cOur movement \u2026 requires, more than anything, bold, unafraid leadership to step out in front, lift high the banner and charge into battle,\u201d Reitz said. \u201cThis is the largest red-state law firm in the country. Texas needs a strong AG. The president needs a strong AG.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Paxton\u2019s endorsement, Reitz is running far behind<\/a> U.S. Rep. Chip Roy\u2019s name recognition and state Sen. Mayes Middleton\u2019s millions in self-funded ad buys. Where Reitz is trying to stand out is in his fervor, his intensity, his willingness to push further than even the arch-conservative candidates he is running against.<\/p>\n Reitz says he is ready, day one, to wage a \u201ccivilizational battle with anti-American forces on the left<\/a>.\u201d He has fantasized about wearing \u201cOAG emblazoned windbreakers\u201d while raiding any public institution \u201cpushing tranny insanity<\/a>,\u201d \u201crun out all Kwanzaa-aligned elements poisoning our state<\/a>\u201d and launch \u201ccounter-jihad<\/a>\u201d against Muslim groups. He recently threatened<\/a> to revoke House Democratic leader Rep. Gene Wu\u2019s citizenship, and sparked pushback<\/a> for his comments on the \u201cinvasion\u201d<\/a> of Indians to Texas.<\/p>\n In more frank terms than any viable candidate before him, Reitz has promised to use the attorney general\u2019s office to advance the goals of one party \u2014 and demolish the other.<\/p>\n Sameeha Rizvi, Texas policy and advocacy coordinator for CAIR Action, a Muslim civil rights group, said Reitz\u2019s rhetoric only serves to generate fear.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a Texan myself, I am tired of the political fanfare. I\u2019m tired of the circus,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not making things better for anyone, anywhere and it\u2019s only creating more division and disunity.\u201d<\/p>\n For Reitz, these criticisms are only more proof that he is fighting the right battle.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best way to serve everyday Texans, the people of Texas who put their vote and their trust in me, from whose delegated power my office rests,\u201d he said, \u201cis to destroy the left.\u201d<\/p>\n Enemies foreign and domestic<\/p>\n Reitz was a freshman at Ronald Reagan High School in San Antonio when the planes flew into the Twin Towers on 9\/11, inspiring him to join the Marines. After graduating from Texas A&M, he deployed to Afghanistan where he \u201cstared into the abyss of anti-civilizational Islamist rot,\u201d as he puts it<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reitz returned from that experience \u201cjust thanking God that I was born in America,\u201d as he said in 2020<\/a>. He enrolled in law school at the University of Texas, where he led the UT chapter of the Federalist Society. He was editor-in-chief of the Texas Review of Law & Politics, a right-leaning law journal where he worked with future legal luminaries like now-U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk and Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew exactly why I was going to law school,\u201d Reitz said in a podcast interview<\/a> with the conservative outlet Texas Scorecard. \u201cTo fulfill the spirit of the oath that I had sworn when I was a Marine to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.\u201d<\/p>\n He went into private practice after graduation, but was itching to get back into the conservative legal combat arena, applying for fellowships, clerkships and government jobs. When Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Blacklock to the Texas Supreme Court in January 2018, Reitz became his inaugural clerk.<\/p>\n In 2020, he ran in a crowded primary for an Austin-based House seat. His largest donor was Middleton, his now-opponent for attorney general. Reitz came in fourth, getting just 15% of the vote, for a seat eventually won by Democratic Rep. Vikki Goodwin.<\/p>\n Reitz returned to private practice, job-hopping while zealously networking to get back onto the battlefield. He knew Paxton and Mateer through conservative legal circles, and despite just three years of legal experience and one failed House run, he worked his connections hard to get hired. <\/p>\n \u2018Our soldiers are lawyers\u2019<\/p>\n On Reitz\u2019 first day at office, he was summoned to meet with Brent Webster, the brand new first assistant hired after Mateer abruptly resigned<\/a>. Reitz assumed he was getting fired.<\/p>\n Instead, he was invited into the inner circle.<\/p>\n \u201cPaxton likes you and knows that you weren\u2019t involved in any of this stuff. His circle of trust is small right now, but we\u2019ve got to figure out whether what [the former employees are] alleging is true, or false, or what happened,\u201d he recalls Webster saying. Webster did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n The senior staffers had accused Paxton of abuse of office, bribery and improper influence, alleging he\u2019d used his office to benefit campaign donor and real estate developer, Nate Paul. Reitz\u2019s investigation led him to conclude it was \u201ca coordinated hit job intended to take out Ken Paxton,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n After that, he said, it became \u201cme, Attorney General Paxton and Brent Webster against the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Less than two months after he started, Reitz was promoted to deputy attorney general for legal strategy, a high-level role that came with a $70,000 pay raise. He helped make the case to fire the remaining employees who had reported Paxton, who he said in an internal report<\/a> were underperforming and \u201cholding the agency hostage.\u201d Four of them later sued Paxton for violating the Texas Whistleblower Act; in July, Paxton agreed the state would pay them $6.6 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reitz had been fiending to get into the conservative legal fight, and suddenly, he was at the center of it. Just weeks after he was promoted, Reitz was in the Oval Office, talking with Trump about overturning the 2020 election by blocking four states from casting their electoral votes for Joe Biden.<\/p>\n The Texas-led lawsuit<\/a> was a shocking gambit, and a failed one: The U.S. Supreme Court immediately rejected the suit<\/a>, saying Texas lacked standing to bring the case. But it reflected how the agency would pursue litigation during the Biden administration \u2014 fast, furious, without worrying too much about the details. Better to lose than not try.<\/p>\n On Biden\u2019s inauguration day, Reitz and crew were busy filing the first<\/a> of over 100 lawsuits the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office would bring against the new administration. Reitz likes to say his job was \u201coffensive coordinator\u201d to Paxton\u2019s head coach, trading his typical war metaphors for sports.<\/p>\n \u201cMy job was to identify targets to go after,\u201d he said recently, dipping back into soldier-speak. \u201cEntities, whether governmental in nature, federal, state or local, or private actors who, in the attorney general\u2019s and my judgment, were conducting themselves in ways that were unconstitutional or illegal or thwarting law and order or justice.\u201d<\/p>\n He perfected a \u201cplug and play\u201d model for suing the Biden administration, especially over immigration, which he explained at a Heritage Foundation event<\/a> in October 2021.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018It\u2019s a disaster\u2019 \u2014 that\u2019s your opening paragraph in every lawsuit, \u2018it\u2019s a disaster,\u2019\u201d Reitz told the audience, describing how to turn any new immigration policy from the Biden administration into a lawsuit. He encouraged other state attorneys general to bring their cases to Texas, where \u201cwe have nothing but good courts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Texas attorney general\u2019s office was at war with \u201cthe forces that want to destroy the American order, root and branch,\u201d he said on Moment of Truth,<\/a> a conservative podcast. \u201cIf you don\u2019t believe that we\u2019re at war, then I think, you know, you need to wake up to that reality. Here at the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office \u2026 our soldiers are lawyers, and our weapons are lawsuits, and our tactic is lawfare. This is the project that we\u2019re engaged in.\u201d<\/p>\n In April 2023, Reitz announced<\/a> he was leaving his \u201cdream job\u201d to become chief of staff for Sen. Ted Cruz. After Trump won reelection in 2024, he nominated Reitz<\/a> to run the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department, calling him \u201ca true MAGA attorney\u201d and \u201ca warrior for our Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n Democrats had a different term \u2014 after Reitz said at his confirmation hearing that there was no \u201chard and fast rule\u201d about whether public officials must abide by court orders, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, called him<\/a> a \u201cdanger to the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n Those titles would become proud calling cards when Reitz left three months later to run for attorney general.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter candid conversations with trusted leaders in both Texas and Washington, it became clear that the cost of replacing me at DOJ was far smaller than the cost of Texas ending up with an unvetted, unproven lightweight as its next Attorney General,\u201d he posted on social media in August.<\/a> \u201cSo I redeployed home to Texas to do what\u2019s necessary.\u201d <\/p>\n Paxton, plus<\/p>\n Five years after Reitz chose to stick by Paxton, Paxton returned the favor, endorsing him as \u201cbattle-tested, proven, and ready to be Attorney General.\u201d<\/p>\n Reitz has tried to make this campaign a referendum on Paxton, dogging his opponents for insufficient fealty to a man many once believed was days away from being indicted, impeached or voted out of office.<\/p>\n \u201cChip Roy was the first elected official in America to call for Paxton to be removed from office. Immediately after that, Mayes Middleton started unloading vast sums of money, bankrolling everyone that wanted to take him out,\u201d Reitz said at a forum in East Texas<\/a>. \u201cI was loyal in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Running as an underdog, Reitz has tried to cast his opponents as weak, inexperienced and secretly liberal. In his telling, Roy, who served as Paxton\u2019s first assistant before Mateer, and Middleton, one of Texas\u2019 most conservative legislators, would fritter away the power of the most important attorney general\u2019s office in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cThese guys are not fit. They\u2019re not suited. They will screw it up,\u201d he said. \u201cThey will not do justice to the position they are seeking.\u201d<\/p>\n All of the GOP candidates lay out similar conservative priorities, like going after the \u201cIslamification\u201d of Texas by suing Muslim-affiliated nonprofits, schools and developments, a hot issue in GOP circles right now. But even next to them, Reitz\u2019s rhetoric about Muslims stands out. He has vowed to create a legal environment \u201cso inhospitable that they\u2019ll self-deport or go to jail,\u201d because, as he said in a post, \u201cJesus Christ \u2014 and none other \u2014 reigns over this land.\u201d<\/p>\n He argues that he is best equipped to continue Paxton\u2019s legal fight against CAIR<\/a>, the Muslim advocacy group that Republicans accuse of working with foreign terrorist organizations to undermine America. Like others targeted by Paxton, including immigrant-serving nonprofits<\/a>,voter registration groups<\/a> and Democrat-aligned organizations<\/a>, CAIR is having to expend a huge amount of time and resources to exonerate themselves from what they say are entirely trumped up allegations.<\/p>\n \u201cIf he\u2019s using this kind of language now, what would he do if he got into office?\u201d Rizvi, with CAIR Action, said. \u201cIf you\u2019re losing, it\u2019s not holding up in court, it\u2019s because they\u2019re B.S. They\u2019re wasting money, time and resources to try and make a problem out of something that doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n Reitz is undeterred. He\u2019s hoping that GOP primary voters who love Paxton will love Paxton Plus even more.<\/p>\n \u201cI imagine being even more aggressive and energetic than Paxton,\u201d he said. \u201cPaxton has been tremendous. I think he\u2019s 10 out of 10, but to use the old Spinal Tap reference, we\u2019re going to turn it up to 11.\u201d<\/p>\n This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Apple News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>| Twitter<\/a>\u00a0| Or sign up for our\u00a0RSS Feed<\/a><\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n![\"Candidate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771267087_47_20260117-Canton-EL-151.jpg\")
Candidate for Texas Attorney General Aaron Reitz answers a question from a moderator during a Texas Republican candidate debate forum at the Civic Center in Canton on Saturday, January 17, 2026.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771267088_941_AG-Cold-Case-Brent-Webster-KC-02.jpg\")
Then-Deputy Attorney General of Legal Strategy Aaron Reitz speaks during an Attorney General press conference in the William Clements Building in Austin on June 9, 2022.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771267088_996_20260117-Canton-EL-176.jpg\")
Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General, Aaron Reitz, greets attendees after speaking during a Texas Republican candidate debate forum at the Civic Center in Canton on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026.<\/p>\n
![\"Texas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Canton.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Anti-Islam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Safi-Eid-AM-06.jpg\")
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