(The Center Square) – The state of Texas has now sued the Biden administration 101 times.
The latest two lawsuits pushing Texas over the 100-mark were filed this month. One includes Texas joining a lawsuit filed by the state of Louisiana against the Federal Communications Commission, the other sues the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure Office of Special Counsel staff don’t destroy records related to investigations and prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump.
They follow lawsuits Texas filed against the administration over the last four years asking courts to block a wide range of actions the administration took targeting the Texas oil and natural gas industry, Texas’ border security efforts, Texas’ election integrity efforts, Texas’ abortion bans, and many others. Texas also sued to block Biden administration vaccine mandates, employee and worker mandates, military mandates, gun restriction mandates, and dozens of other mandates. Texas also sued to block Biden administration actions that would have stripped funding for Texas’ Medicaid, rural hospital and child support programs, among others, The Center Square reported. Texas has so far won most of them.
“For the past four years, the Biden-Harris Administration routinely violated the Constitution to implement an agenda that harmed our Nation,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said. “From unlawfully orchestrating the border invasion to attacking our oil and gas industries and illegally abusing taxpayer money to censor our own citizens, the federal government has been ruthlessly weaponized against the American people. But Texas stood in their way. We proudly led the Nation’s fight to uphold the rule of law and restore Constitutional rights when they were under attack.”
In the Louisiana lawsuit, the states asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to block a new rule issued by the Federal Communications Commission they argue arbitrarily limits states’ rights and unlawfully burdens taxpayers. In September, the FCC issued a rule related to federal prisoner phone call policy that preempted state laws and subsequently increased costs to state taxpayers, according to the brief. The lawsuit argues the rule is arbitrarily and capricious and violates the Administrative Procedures Act and asks the court to block it.
Paxton also sued U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the DOJ to prevent destruction of records “from Jack Smith’s corrupt investigation into President Donald Trump.” He’s referring to DOJ’s special counsel who prosecuted Trump alleging he sought to interfere in the 2020 election.
Smith led an indictment against Trump in August 2023 but the case never went to trial. Trump denied the charges, arguing he was being politically persecuted and lection interference to stop him from running for office or being reelected. Smith recently announced he was pausing pursuing the case. A federal judge has set Dec. 2 as a deadline for him to file a status, when it is expected he will drop it.
Smith also charged Trump with mishandling classified documents in a Florida case, which a federal judge dismissed. Smith appealed the case, which is before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Paxton and other state attorneys general have filed amicus briefs with the court requesting the indictment dismissal to be upheld.
Texas’ latest lawsuit against the DOJ was filed in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division and asks the court to restrain Smith from destroying any documents related to his investigation and prosecution of Trump. The lawsuit was filed after on Nov. 8, Paxton made a Freedom of Information Act request to the DOJ for “records related to Smith’s unconstitutional investigation into President Trump,” noting that previous special counsels like Robert Mueller “destroyed records and escaped accountability for it.”
The brief states that Paxton “fears that many releasable records – including those that he sought – will never see daylight. That is not because DOJ has any legal reason to withhold them” but because the “defendants will simply destroy the records. That is how they and/or their predecessors have operated in the recent past. And Jack Smith’s team has conducted itself in multiple ways that suggest it cannot be blindly trusted to preserve, and eventually produce, all of its records.”
“I will not allow the corrupt weaponization of the United States government to be swept under the rug as Jack Smith and others who unjustly targeted President Trump attempt to avoid accountability,” Paxton said. “The American people deserve transparency, and those responsible for these unlawful witch hunts must not destroy the evidence of their own misdeeds.”
Texas’ lawsuit also follows requests made by U.S. House committees, led by the House Judiciary Committee, that Smith preserve all records “surrounding the Biden-Harris Administration’s politicized prosecutions of President Donald Trump.”
“The Committee on the Judiciary is continuing its oversight of the Department of Justice and the Office of Special Counsel. According to recent public reports, prosecutors in your office have been ‘gaming out legal options’ in the event that” Trump was reelected, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-OH, wrote Smith. After Trump won, Jordan and others expressed concerns that Smith’s office “may attempt to purge relevant records, communications, and documents responsive to our numerous requests for information,” noting that his office “is not immune from transparency or above accountability for its actions.”
Smith was instructed to preserve a list of documents and communications and provide requested information to Congress no later than Nov. 22.
