{"id":234856,"date":"2026-04-04T11:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T11:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/234856\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T11:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T11:06:08","slug":"texas-ag-ken-paxton-faces-scrutiny-over-taxpayer-funded-hotel-rooms-for-donors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/234856\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas AG Ken Paxton faces scrutiny over taxpayer-funded hotel rooms for donors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a> is facing backlash over his agency’s move to provide taxpayer-funded hotel rooms to donors and other private citizens amid his embroiled runoff against U.S. Senator John Cornyn.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The scrutiny against Paxton comes after a routine audit \u2014 initially paused and later reopened by the state comptroller’s office \u2014 unveiled discrepancies tied to the reallocation of hotel rooms. <\/a>The attorney general’s office paid more than $20,000 for employees attending President Donald Trump’s inauguration and Supreme Court arguments over an age-verification law.<\/p>\n

Those scheduled to arrive in Washington, D.C., could not travel because of a winter storm. Instead of opting to receive an offsetting refund to the office, Paxton’s donors and private citizens linked to him agreed to pay out of pocket and use the rooms, which would’ve left the agency on the hook for roughly $16,000. The alternative bookings\u00a0saved the agency $7,296.<\/a><\/p>\n

However, the agency’s employees did not follow the proper process to transfer these rooms, nor did some private citizens pay until the audit reopened in October, according to the Texas Tribune. Additionally, two private citizens, one of whom had previously donated to Paxton, did not use the rooms. The unused, nonrefundable rooms cost the agency $8,339.<\/p>\n

Chief Financial Officer Michele Price and Chief of Staff Lesley French reportedly discussed the travel discrepancies via email.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the audit was reopened, French told fellow senior officials about “errors and mistakes” in the hotel records that could be “misconstrued” in the probe, as deputy First Assistant Attorney General Ralph Molina described them.<\/p>\n

French resigned the following day, and Price left the agency soon after. Neither cited the audit or investigation in their resignation letters.<\/p>\n

The Office of the Attorney General and Paxton’s campaign did not respond to the American-Statesman’s requests for comment by the time of publication.<\/p>\n

Who stayed in these rooms?<\/p>\n

Paxton donors Terry and Jennifer Lacore, controversial Albanian businessman Bashkim Ulaj, and the chair of the Albanian Republican Party, Fatmir Mediu, agreed to take the rooms. Keith Craft, lead pastor at Elevate Life Church in Frisco, also later took one of the rooms, according to the Texas Bullpen.<\/a><\/p>\n

State Sen. Angela Paxton (R-McKinney), who has since filed for divorce from the attorney general, also took one of the rooms at her own expense. Notably, she authored the age-verification bill that was argued and ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Previous controversies involving Ken Paxton<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Paxton has been in hot water over donor relationships. His 2023 Texas Senate impeachment proceedings<\/a> largely centered around allegations involving improper relationships with a donor.<\/p>\n

Cornyn’s camp took the opportunity to criticize Paxton, accusing the attorney general of engaging in “illegal taxpayer spending” that benefited his donors and pointed out that the reimbursements from his backers did not come until the state auditors reopened their probe.<\/p>\n

Paxton and Cornyn have gone tit-for-tat, packing proverbial punches where they can throughout the contentious campaign cycle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is facing backlash over his agency’s move to provide taxpayer-funded hotel rooms to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[90660,2498,74956,1967,90659,90657,90658,27,4479,29,28,3602],"class_list":{"0":"post-234856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-albanian-republican-party","9":"tag-angela-paxton","10":"tag-hotel-rooms","11":"tag-ken-paxton","12":"tag-michele-price","13":"tag-private-citizens","14":"tag-supreme-court-arguments","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-texas-attorney-general","17":"tag-texas-headlines","18":"tag-texas-news","19":"tag-texas-tribune"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}