Ken Paxton caught using taxpayer funds for hundreds of vacations

Ken Paxton caught using taxpayer funds for hundreds of vacations
www.msn.com/en-us/ne ws/other/ken-paxton- caught-using-taxpaye r-funds-for-hunRepublicans embrace corruption.
Senate candidate Ken Paxton took nearly 1,000 business trips during his tenure as Texas Attorney General, costing taxpayers millions of dollars along the way. Only one in six of them actually had to do with work.A new report from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune shows that Paxton has taken almost 1,000 trips out of state since 2015, accompanied by Texas police each time at a cost of $3.3 million to his constituents. His security detail alone cost $24,000 a month, while his predecessor Greg Abbott's cost $7,400 a month. Of those 1,000 trips, research only linked 138 of them to actual business. In fact, Paxton didn't even record them as such.Paxton took 53 trips to Florida, 24 trips to Utah-where his family trust owns properties-and 19 trips out of the country, all on the taxpayer's dime. Paxton did not offer any specific explanation for his lack of business records for the trips."Throughout his career, Ken Paxton has faced numerous security threats stemming from his courageous work as Attorney General fighting on behalf of the people of Texas," said his office in a statement. "Those threats are a direct result of him taking on the cartels terrorizing Texans and some of the nation's most dangerous violent criminals."Beyond being a blatant misuse of public funds, especially given how many trips he took to his properties, this is a sign that Paxton cares more about his political office and its perks than he does about his actual constituents, who are paying for those perks."If you've got all these extra trips, it becomes ethically and morally problematic," former National Association of Attorneys General executive director Chris Toth told ProPublica. "The ethical question is whether a legitimate security function has effectively become a taxpayer-funded subsidy."