Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who oversaw the proceedings after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was found not guilty in his impeachment trial, harshly condemned the Texas House for how they handled the situation.

He also ordered a full audit of the House proceedings of how taxpayer funds were spent in the impeachment process.

Also read | Attorney General Ken Paxton acquitted of impeachment articles by Texas Senate

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The Texas Senate found Paxton not guilty of all 16 counts of impeachment after a two-week-long impeachment trial. Senators decided to dismiss the remaining four articles after these acquittals.

Patrick spoke about the entire procedure before dismissing the senators. The process began in May when the House voted articles of impeachment and sent them to the Texas Senate for the trial.

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Patrick, in a speech, said, “I’ve been unusually quiet for the last three months since the House of Representatives sent the article of impeachment to us with very short notice. The Speaker (House Speaker Dade Phelan) and his team rammed through the first impeachment of a statewide-elected official in Texas in over 100 years while paying no attention to the precedent.”

Patrick immediately launched a harsh attack, claiming that the entire process had been rushed, and he vowed to support a Texas constitution change to stop future incidents of this kind. He also declared his will to launch a thorough audit to examine how taxpayer money was used during the impeachment process.

He said, “We will provide our costs, as well, that were forced on us by the House impeachment. One big difference is that the Senate did not pay a huge team of outside lawyers and investigators.”

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The clip of his speech went viral on X platform. Several X users lauded Patrick for his move. One user wrote, “This brought tears to my eyes!  What a wonderful end to a terrible injustice done to Ken Paxton.  I pray for him and his family Thayer they come out stronger than ever.”

“Bravo, very impressive and a speech to remember.” another user tweeted.