{"id":29224,"date":"2025-10-31T10:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T10:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/29224\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T10:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T10:28:09","slug":"dallas-attorney-tony-box-enters-democratic-primary-for-texas-attorney-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/29224\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas attorney Tony Box enters Democratic primary for Texas attorney general"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy <\/a> , and give us feedback <\/a> . <\/p>\n

Dallas attorney Tony Box is running to be the Democratic nominee for Texas attorney general, he announced this week, becoming the third member of his party vying to replace outgoing incumbent Ken Paxton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Box, a first-time candidate, is an Army veteran, former FBI agent and former federal prosecutor who now works in private practice in Dallas. He will face former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski and state Sen. Nathan Johnson<\/a> of Dallas in the March 3 primary.<\/p>\n

Paxton, who has led the office for a decade, is giving up his post to challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a press release, Box said he was seeking to \u201cbring decades of public service and law enforcement experience to an office plagued by corruption and political theater.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AG should be protecting consumers, cracking down on fraud and partnering with law enforcement, but Ken Paxton has turned this office into a laughingstock,\u201d Box said in a statement. \u201cI\u2019ve spent my entire career fighting corruption, prosecuting criminals and standing up to powerful people who abuse their positions. Texans deserve better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Box\u2019s journey to running for attorney general began when he was 16 years old and got shot in the stomach while protecting a coworker from a robbery. The episode prompted him to \u201cdedicate his life to the service of others,\u201d he said in a press release. <\/p>\n

After graduating from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Box entered the Army. He was deployed to Iraq as a judge advocate general, the military\u2019s version of a lawyer, and served as an investigator for the Congressional Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped uncover $30 billion of waste and fraud, according to his campaign press release. <\/p>\n

Box spent a decade as an FBI special agent, serving on the SWAT team and deploying as part of the agency\u2019s September 11th response, he said. In the meantime, he went to law school at night. <\/p>\n

In 2018, Box joined the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri handling tax investigations and prosecutions, according to his LinkedIn. In 2022, he joined the law firm Gray Reed<\/a> in Dallas, where he represents businesses and \u201chigh net-worth individuals\u201d in civil and criminal tax cases, white-collar defense and regulatory investigations. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer of the state of Texas and the people of this state deserve a leader who is looking out for them, not corrupt politicians and their cronies,\u201d Box said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Across the aisle, four Republicans are competing to succeed Paxton as the GOP nominee: state Sens. Joan Huffman<\/a> of Houston and Mayes Middleton<\/a> of Galveston, former Paxton deputy Aaron Reitz and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy<\/a> of Austin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy , and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2137,5182,102,104,103,288,19699,287,293],"class_list":{"0":"post-29224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-2026-elections","9":"tag-attorney-generals-office","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-headlines","12":"tag-dallas-news","13":"tag-elections","14":"tag-nathan-johnson","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-texas-legislature"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29224","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=29224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}