Ken Paxton has spent years building a national political profile. But a new investigation is putting a much less glamorous spotlight on how some of his travels have been financed.
Records reviewed by The Associated Press show that the Texas attorney general has taken more than 275 out-of-state trips since taking office in 2015 — with taxpayers footing at least $1.9 million in expenses for his security detail.
And some of those trips look a lot more like leisure travel than the day-to-day business of running Texas’ top law enforcement agency.
Take Paxton’s Senate campaign launch last year.
Instead of making the usual Texas political rounds, Paxton announced his campaign on Fox News, cleared his calendar and booked a hotel in Augusta, Georgia, during the Masters golf tournament.
The taxpayer bill for his security detail: at least $25,000.
Yeah, that raises some questions.
The AP’s review of state and campaign records found that Paxton left roughly 730 workdays blank on his official calendars during his time as attorney general.
Meanwhile, his out-of-state travel kept piling up.
He traveled to California wine country, Caribbean destinations, European tourist hot spots and ski resorts. Over a two-year period ending in 2024, records show he traveled to the Caribbean, Israel, India, Taiwan and South Africa, made three trips to Europe and visited five different ski towns in the Rockies.
The cost to Texas taxpayers also climbed sharply.
Security-detail reimbursements for travel outside Texas increased from about $30,000 in 2015 to nearly $400,000 in 2024, according to the records reviewed by the AP.
And the more Paxton’s national political profile grew, the more his travel appeared to expand beyond Texas.
Joshua Blank, director of research for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, told the AP that the pattern could make voters question how seriously Paxton has taken his job.
The numbers are hard to ignore.
In 2021, Paxton had more than 90 blank workdays on his official calendar. By 2024, that number had climbed to 112.
And there was another striking change.
In 2022, his calendar contained 96 days where the only listed activities were interviews with conservative media outlets. The following year, he had 122 such interviews — more than the 98 events related to the day-to-day operations of his office.
Paxton’s office disputes the idea that his calendars tell the whole story.
In a statement, the attorney general’s office said calendar entries do not capture his full workday, including phone calls, negotiations, legal strategy and briefings with his staff.
His office also said Paxton’s work securing major settlements against drugmakers and technology companies requires travel and that, because of threats against him, he travels with a security detail.
Fair enough.
But that still leaves the basic question: Why are Texas taxpayers paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for security expenses connected to trips that take Paxton far outside the state?
California provides one particularly eye-catching example.
Paxton has made more than 25 trips to California, with taxpayers covering more than $175,000 in security costs, according to records.
That includes at least five visits to Northern California’s wine country.
In 2019, Paxton’s campaign spent $11,000 on lodging at a boutique Napa Valley hotel, vineyard tours and stops at two wineries. The campaign characterized the expenses as fundraising-related.
But taxpayers still picked up another $8,100 in security costs for the trip.
A separate wine-country trip in 2024 cost the public more than $14,000 in security expenses.
During that trip, Paxton’s campaign also paid $436 for a meal at Mammoth Rock Restaurant near Yosemite National Park.
Then there are his trips to Florida.
Since Donald Trump’s first presidential victory in 2016, Paxton has traveled to Washington more than 31 times, according to records. After Trump began rebuilding his political operation following his 2020 election loss, Paxton made regular trips to Palm Beach, home of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.
In early 2021, Paxton played golf with Trump.
That same year, Paxton paid nearly $50,000 from his campaign account to hold a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago and flew into West Palm Beach aboard a private jet, according to campaign finance records.
He has since made 11 more visits to the Palm Beach area, in addition to 28 other trips to Florida cities.
Two of those Florida stops were at Disney World.
Then there was Paxton’s European travel.
In 2022, while running for reelection, he embarked on a multistop European trip that included Italy, Albania, Greece and Malta. He also traveled to an Idaho resort town and Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.
The taxpayer cost for his security detail that year was roughly $230,000.
And this isn’t just about the number of trips.
Texas does not require the attorney general to publicly account for his day-to-day whereabouts, meaning the available records often don’t make clear exactly how long Paxton stayed at each destination or what he was doing there.
The security records, however, provide a window into the cost.
And that window shows a dramatic increase.
About $30,000 in out-of-state security reimbursements in 2015.
Nearly $400,000 in 2024.
At least $1.9 million since Paxton took office.
That’s taxpayer money.
The issue is not whether an attorney general is allowed to travel.
It’s whether Texas taxpayers should be repeatedly paying the security costs associated with an elected official’s jet-setting lifestyle — from Masters week in Augusta to California wine country, European destinations, Caribbean resorts and Florida.
And the records show this isn’t an isolated trip. It’s a pattern that has been building for years.
