From the beginning, the courtroom drama within the impeachment trial of Ken Paxton, the Texas legal professional normal, has centered on a confrontation between the larger-than-life Houston attorneys introduced in by either side to argue the case.
In Mr. Paxton’s nook, there may be Tony Buzbee, a well-tanned orator and onetime candidate for mayor of Houston, who efficiently defended Rick Perry, a former governor of Texas, towards expenses of abuse of workplace.
Not to be outdone, the House impeachment managers introduced in their very own massive weapons: Dick DeGuerin, whose checklist of purchasers included the Waco cult chief David Koresh, and Rusty Hardin, a defender of criminally accused athletes like Roger Clemens and Scottie Pippen.
The voices of those high-profile attorneys have echoed for days within the towering chamber of the Texas State Senate, underscoring the bizarre nature of the case. The impeachment trial, now anticipated to wrap up by week’s finish, is the primary of a statewide official in Texas in additional than a century, and it has turn into a showcase for the deepening rifts inside the Republican Party, each within the state and nationally.
The first days of the trial have included clashes over proof and accusations of grandstanding between Mr. Hardin, an avuncular 81-year-old, and Mr. Buzbee, 55, whose aggressive cross-examination appeared to rattle the prosecution’s first witness.
“He’s asking for hearsay,” Mr. Hardin mentioned of Mr. Buzbee at one level, smiling as he objected from his seat. “It must be a valid objection — he made it 30 times when I was talking.”
“I don’t know what that objection is,” Mr. Buzbee replied, shifting his weight on the lectern, his arms folded.
Mr. Hardin chuckled loudly.
“Let’s just move on, gentlemen,” mentioned Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who’s presiding over the impeachment trial.
The two attorneys have confronted off earlier than, most notably over sexual assault accusations towards Deshaun Watson, a former Houston Texans quarterback, with Mr. Hardin defending Mr. Watson and Mr. Buzbee representing the accusers. The case resulted in a settlement and a resumption of Mr. Watson’s soccer profession.
The two attorneys current a pointy distinction in kinds. Mr. Buzbee, whose hair is tightly slicked again, has proudly described himself as “a shark” and has sometimes sought elective workplace, together with throughout the impeachment trial: After being named to Mr. Paxton’s authorized workforce, he introduced that he would run for Houston City Council within the November election. Just a few days earlier than the trial, Mr. Buzbee additionally introduced the launch of a business, promoting a cannabis-derived seltzer product known as HoBuzz.
Mr. Hardin’s extra understated model makes an attempt what Texas Monthly as soon as known as a “practiced informality,” aimed toward making juries really feel as snug as potential. In the courtroom, he favors tan fits slightly than navy or grey, and his opening statements are typically transient.
“If you’re going to ask twelve people to make a miserable decision, don’t make them miserable while you’re doing it,” he informed the journal for a profile in 2002.
By distinction, Mr. Hardin, a one-time prosecutor in Houston, has a popularity for aggressiveness that earned him the nickname “Bulldog” and drove Anna Nicole Smith, a former Playboy mannequin, to lash out at him throughout six days of testimony in a 2001 courtroom battle over her useless husband’s property. Mr. Hardin represented the property.
“Screw you, Rusty,” Ms. Smith informed him from the witness stand when he advised that her tears had been the results of performing classes. For years afterward, Mr. Hardin has mentioned, he was playfully greeted by shouts of the phrase.
Mr. Hardin appeared to stay to his tried and true method at first of the Paxton trial, adopting a relaxed tone as he offered the primary witnesses. He didn’t ship the prosecution’s opening assertion, which was given as an alternative by Representative Andrew Murr, chair of the House board of impeachment managers. Mr. Murr stored his assertion nicely beneath the allotted 60 minutes.
Mr. Buzbee, in his opening assertion for the protection, got here out swinging, attacking the method and questioning the motives of the assembled state senators who’re performing because the jury.
“Cases are supposed to be decided only upon the evidence,” Mr. Buzbee mentioned. “But I do wonder, are we really going to get a fair trial here? Have you already decided, based on what is politically expedient, or what’s best for you personally?”
Later, Mr. Buzbee aggressively cross-examined the primary witness, Jeff Mateer, a former high aide to Mr. Paxton who believed that his boss was committing doubtlessly prison acts and went to the F.B.I. with these issues in 2020. At one level, after hours on the witness stand, Mr. Mateer grew agitated.
“I know you’re getting excited, just let me finish,” Mr. Buzbee mentioned. “Take it easy.”
“You’re trying to misstate things,” Mr. Mateer mentioned.
“Let’s be clear about what you did, about what you did, the loyal servant, trusted friend,” Mr. Buzbee mentioned sarcastically.
Mr. Hardin objected that Mr. Buzbee was “making fun of the witness” in his questioning, and accused him of interjecting “commercials” for his aspect of the case.
“Again, let’s just move on,” Mr. Patrick mentioned.
Mr. Buzbee took on cross-examination duties on Monday, making gentle of the primary prolonged testimony about an extramarital affair that Mr. Paxton had, and Mr. Paxton’s efforts to hide the affair from his employees and from his spouse Angela, who’s a state senator. Ms. Paxton is sitting in on the impeachment trial however isn’t allowed to participate within the deliberations.
The extramarital affair brought on clear alarm within the legal professional normal’s workplace, the place Mr. Paxton’s chief of employees, Katherine Minter Cary, mentioned she warned him that it might make him weak to bribery. In testimony on Monday, Ms. Cary described a 2018 assembly at Mr. Paxton’s marketing campaign headquarters, wherein the legal professional normal apologized for the affair and Ms. Paxton, who was with him, cried. “My heart broke for her,” Ms. Cary mentioned. Mr. Paxton received re-election later that yr.
One of the articles of impeachment accuses Mr. Paxton of abusing his workplace to learn an Austin actual property developer, Nate Paul. Prosecutors say Mr. Paul was serving to Mr. Paxton conduct the affair, which they are saying continued after the 2018 apology.
Mr. Buzbee was dismissive.
“Imagine if we impeached everybody here in Austin that had had an affair,” he mentioned. “We’d be impeaching for the next 100 years, wouldn’t we?”
Even when different attorneys took up the questioning, the load of authorized and Texas historical past remained. At one level on Friday, each of the attorneys doing the questioning — Mr. DeGuerin and Dan Cogdell, a Houston lawyer who’s representing Mr. Paxton in a separate prison case — in addition to the witness who was testifying, David Maxwell, the previous director of regulation enforcement in Mr. Paxton’s workplace, had been concerned in a roundabout way within the Waco siege.
“This is a Super Bowl for trial lawyers,” Richard Leach, who sat within the spectators’ part of the gallery on Monday, mentioned of the impeachment trial. He and his spouse, Gloria Cantu Minnick, each attorneys, drove from Houston to look at the proceedings, wanting to see a number of the state’s best-known authorized firepower on show.
Mr. Buzbee and Mr. Hardin signify totally different generations of Texas attorneys. They are each army veterans, however they served in very totally different eras: Mr. Hardin as an Army captain in Vietnam, Mr. Buzbee as a Marine Corps infantry officer within the Persian Gulf and in Somalia.
Other Texas attorneys watching the trial have expressed admiration for his or her successes whereas paying attention to their totally different kinds.
Mr. Hardin is “old school” and “more straightforward,” whereas Mr. Buzbee tends to show “flash and razzmatazz,” mentioned Kenneth Tekell, a protection lawyer for power firms. “Rusty paints inside the lines,” he added. “Buzbee paints all over the place. He tries to be more colorful.”
Mr. Hardin, who was a Harris County prosecutor for 15 years earlier than going into personal follow, has received favorable verdicts for a lot of outstanding athletes. Mr. Clemens, a former main league pitcher, was acquitted on expenses that he obstructed justice and lied to Congress by denying that he had used performance-enhancing medicine.
One of Mr. Buzbee’s best-known victories was his profitable protection of Mr. Perry, who was in the end cleared of expenses that he had abused his energy as governor. Another outstanding consumer was the singer Jimmy Buffett, whom Mr. Buzbee efficiently represented in a trademark dispute almost twenty years in the past.
“Buzbee is a really smart and aggressive lawyer who has scrapped his way to the top, or at least what he perceives to be the top,” mentioned Bob McIntyre, 76, an in depth good friend of Mr. Hardin who has been a Houston lawyer for 50 years.
Still, Mr. Buzbee’s expertise for aggressive advocacy might have led to the lieutenant governor’s resolution to impose a gag order earlier than and throughout the impeachment trial. In a news convention shortly after he was named to be Mr. Paxton’s legal professional, Mr. Buzbee blasted the impeachment expenses as “baloney.”
Neither Mr. Hardin nor Mr. Buzbee granted a request for an interview for this text, although if the previous is any indication, they could have favored to.
Source: www.nytimes.com