A Texas attorney who defended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton when he faced 16 articles of impeachment in 2023 is endorsing Paxton’s Democratic rival James Talarico for the US Senate seat in Texas.
Dan Cogdell, a Houston-based defense lawyer who represented the Texas attorney general in both the impeachment trial and a long-running securities fraud case, told NOTUS in a statement that his former client “has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.”
“And unlike Ken, I believe to my core that James Talarico believes in unity over division and that he knows how to assemble not only Democrats, but Independents and Republicans, and we need that right now,” Cogdell added.
Cogdell previously donated $6,500 to Paxton’s campaign last year, but donated $1,000 to the Talarico campaign in March, according to campaign finance reports.
Paxton’s impeachment trial by the Texas House of Representatives included allegations of bribery. Paxton also has threatened to arrest Democrats who left the state to oppose the Texas redistricting effort, was accused of bribery and fraud, stole a $1,000 fountain pen from a courthouse in 2013, and was divorced by his wife who accused him of infidelity.
Cogdell has broken with his party to criticize Trump as “the greatest threat to Democracy our country’s ever seen.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has called Cogdell “a liberal Trump-hating trial lawyer.”
Talarico, the 37-year-old state lawmaker who has impressed Democrats in Washington with his campaign and fundraising prowess, welcomed the Cogdell endorsement, and appealed directly to GOP voters who may not be willing to support Paxton.