Texas AG Ken Paxton fled home with his wife to avoid subpoena in abortion case, court filing says

Texas AG Ken Paxton fled home with his wife to avoid subpoena in abortion case, court filing says


Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled his home to avoid being served a subpoena Monday in a federal lawsuit filed by groups seeking to help Texans receive out-of-state abortions, court filings show.

Paxton ran from the garage of his home in McKinney, Texas, into a truck driven by his wife, State Sen. Angela Paxton, while refusing to accept the documents from a process server, according to an affidavit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Austin.

The Paxtons drove away without taking the documents, which were left on the ground by the house, process server Ernesto Martin Herrera wrote in the sworn affidavit.

The subpoena ordered Paxton, a Republican, to testify in hearing Tuesday morning in a civil lawsuit in which multiple Texas-based nonprofits want to resume helping pregnant residents obtain abortions in other states. That includes paying for out-of-state abortion providers and providing financial aid to those seeking abortions, as well as providing interstate travel to those providers.

The nonprofits say their abortion-assisting activities had ceased shortly before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which enshrined the federal right to abortion for decades, in a 5-4 vote in June. The high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization also threw out another case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which had largely upheld the right to an abortion established by Roe.

Paxton in a pair of tweets late Monday night claimed he was showing concern for his family and attacked the media for reporting on the affidavit, without denying the substance of the document.

“This is a ridiculous waste of time and the media should be ashamed of themselves,” Paxton tweeted in response to a Texas Tribune article.

“All across the country, conservatives have faced threats to their safety — many threats that received scant coverage or condemnation from the mainstream media,” his tweet said.

“It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family,” he said in a second tweet.

Herrera’s affidavit said that he arrived at Paxton’s house Monday at 8:28 a.m. and was greeted at the front door by a woman who identified herself as Angela. When he told her that he was trying to deliver the subpoenas to Ken Paxton, she told him that the AG was on the phone.

Herrera, who said he recognized Ken Paxton inside the house through glass on the door, offered to wait for him. Angela replied that Paxton “was in a hurry to leave,” according to Herrera, who observed a black Chevy truck in the driveway and then saw another car arrive there.

At about 9:40 a.m., Herrera said he saw Paxton exiting his garage. Herrera walked up the driveway toward Paxton and called out his name, at which point “he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the garage.”

Minutes later, Angela came out to the truck and opened both the driver-side door and the door behind it, Herrera wrote. A few minutes after she started the truck, “I saw Mr. Paxton RAN from the door inside the garage towards the rear door behind the driver side,” Herrera wrote.

“I approached the truck, and loudly called him by his name and stated that I had court documents for him. Mr. Paxton ignored me and kept heading for the truck. After determining that Mr. Paxton was not going to take the Subpoenas from my hand, I stated that I was serving him with legal documents and was leaving them on the ground where he could get them,” Herrera wrote.

“I then placed the documents on the ground beside the truck. Service was completed at 9:50 am. He got in the truck leaving the documents on the ground, and then both vehicles left,” he wrote.

In July, Paxton sued the Biden administration over guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services that hospitals and doctors must perform abortions in emergency situations.

Paxton, who was elected attorney general in 2014 and re-elected in 2018, has been under indictment on securities fraud charges for seven years, though the case has not gone to trial. He won his Republican primary in May, defeating GOP challenger George P. Bush in a runoff.



Source

Healthy Returns: What to know about a CDC vaccine panel’s votes against a mercury preservative in flu shots
Health

Healthy Returns: What to know about a CDC vaccine panel’s votes against a mercury preservative in flu shots

Biostatistician and epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, MD, PhD, and Dr. Mina Zadeh, ACIP Executive Secretary, CDC, look on as people present their information to members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) advisory panel for vaccines convenes, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. June 25, 2025. Megan Varner […]

Read More
Medicaid cuts in Trump’s ‘big beautiful’ bill will leave millions uninsured, threaten rural hospitals
Health

Medicaid cuts in Trump’s ‘big beautiful’ bill will leave millions uninsured, threaten rural hospitals

An aerial view of Valley Health Hampshire Memorial Hospital on June 17, 2025 in Romney, W.V. Ricky Carioti | The Washington Post | Getty Images President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” would make sweeping changes to U.S. health care, leaving millions of vulnerable Americans without health insurance and threatening the hospitals and centers that provide […]

Read More
Moderna’s flu vaccine shows positive late-stage trial results, paving way for combination Covid shot
Health

Moderna’s flu vaccine shows positive late-stage trial results, paving way for combination Covid shot

The Moderna Inc. headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 26, 2024. Adam Glanzman | Bloomberg | Getty Images Moderna on Monday said its experimental mRNA-based flu vaccine produced a stronger immune response than a currently available shot in a late-stage trial, clearing a path forward for the product and the company’s separate combination flu and […]

Read More