Paxton\u2019s 2023 impeachment<\/a> by the Republican-led Texas House was a tipping point. The Senate acquitted Paxton, and two senators who voted to clear the attorney general \u2013 Joan Huffman of Houston and Mayes Middleton of Galveston \u2013 are now running to replace him.<\/p>\n\u201cHe\u2019s been impeached. He got sued by his top deputies,\u201d Box said. \u201cThat\u2019s not a good look for the attorney general\u2019s office, and I want to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Box has a history of law enforcement.<\/p>\n
After earning an accounting degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta, he became an Army paratrooper and commanded tank platoons.<\/p>\n
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Tony Box<\/p>\n
Provided by Tony Box \/ Provided<\/p>\n
Later, he served as an investigator for the Congressional Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he says he uncovered $30 billion in waste and fraud. He\u2019s worked for the U.S. Department of Defense to help the Afghan government develop systems against corruption and fraud. And for nearly 10 years he was an FBI special agent. <\/p>\n
Box was also an assistant U.S. attorney, a job in which he prosecuted tax evasion, violent crimes and fraud, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose experiences shaped me,\u201d Box said. \u201cI feel blessed to be alive. I\u2019m still here, fighting, kicking and trying to do my best to fight for others and do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Box said his career and life experience set him apart from his Democratic and Republican rivals for attorney general.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople want fresh ideas,\u201d Box said. \u201cThey are not looking for a career politician who\u2019s looking to move up the ladder. They want someone who is going to have passion and courage to fight for the people, and only for the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
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FILE – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md., Feb. 23, 2024. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana, File)<\/p>\n
Jose Luis Magana \/ AP<\/p>\n
If elected, he said, he would restore the integrity of the attorney general\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to conduct a top to bottom review of all the lawsuits and all the action taken, and the ones that are valid will remain, and the ones that are frivolous I\u2019ll get rid of,\u201d Box said.<\/p>\n
The winner of the Democratic primary will face the candidate who emerges from the Republican primary.<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n
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The GOP candidates vying to replace Paxton include U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin, Aaron Reitz, a former chief of staff for Sen. Ted Cruz, and two former deputy attorneys generals under Paxton, Huffman and Middleton.<\/p>\n
Box said he\u2019ll have the resources to compete in the primary and general election.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll also have a message,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople deserve a courageous leader in the attorney general\u2019s office who is going to fight for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas lawyer Tony Box says a near-death experience as a teenager drove him into law enforcement, public service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[294,102,104,103,1967,287],"class_list":["post-27705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-crime","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-ken-paxton","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27705","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=27705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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