{"id":329084,"date":"2026-06-09T12:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T12:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/329084\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T12:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T12:46:08","slug":"ken-paxtons-ex-lawyer-endorses-rival-james-talarico-in-texas-senate-race-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/329084\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Paxton\u2019s ex-lawyer endorses rival James Talarico in Texas Senate race | Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lawyer who represented Ken Paxton<\/a>, Texas\u2019s attorney general, for nearly a decade over accusations of corruption and securities fraud is supporting Democrat James Talarico \u2013 and not his former client \u2013 in one of the biggest US Senate races.<\/p>\n

Talarico on Monday drew attention to his campaign winning the endorsement of Houston attorney Dan Cogdell, who was part of Paxton\u2019s defense team during the Republican\u2019s historic impeachment trial in 2023 that ended in acquittal.<\/p>\n

The legal troubles that shadowed Paxton in public office in Texas<\/a> are a central attack line of Talarico\u2019s campaign, though in his endorsement, Cogdell didn\u2019t cite concerns about his client\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

Cogdell said he didn\u2019t dislike Paxton as a person and felt that Texas lawmakers were right to eventually acquit the attorney general. But as a politician, Cogdell said, Paxton is too focused on appeasing Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked my ass off for the man for nine years,\u201d Cogdell said in an interview with the Associated Press. \u201cBut that\u2019s a different inquiry. My obligation to Ken ended at the courthouse steps and my obligation as a citizen is to do what I think is the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cogdell said Texas needs a lot of work, pointing to education and healthcare, \u201cand to simply bootlick or rubber stamp Trump, that\u2019s not what we need in DC right now\u201d. He also recently spoke to Talarico at length on Cogdell\u2019s podcast.<\/p>\n

Asked for comment, an aide to Paxton\u2019s campaign said Cogdell is a Democrat and called the endorsement unsurprising.<\/p>\n

The lead defense attorney in Paxton\u2019s impeachment trial, Tony Buzbee, reiterated that on X. Buzbee added that he was supporting Paxton in the race.<\/p>\n

Cogdell described himself as a registered Democrat, although voters in Texas do not register by political party. He added, however, that he considers himself a moderate who has given more campaign contributions over the years to Republican candidates than Democrats<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Talarico has given Democrats hope of flipping the statewide seat in Texas blue as the party scrambles to retake control of the Senate in November.<\/p>\n

Paxton\u2019s insurgent campaign beat senator John Cornyn in the Republican Senate primary runoff last month, helped by a Trump endorsement in the final days of the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lawyer who represented Ken Paxton, Texas\u2019s attorney general, for nearly a decade over accusations of corruption and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-329084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329084","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=329084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}