Texas AG Paxton fled home with his wife to avoid subpoena in abortion

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled his home to avoid being served a subpoena Monday in a federal lawsuit filed by groups seeking to help Texans receive out-of-state abortions, court filings show.

Paxton ran from the garage of his home in McKinney, Texas, into a truck driven by his wife, State Sen. Angela Paxton, while refusing to accept the documents from a process server, according to an affidavit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Austin.

The Paxtons drove away without taking the documents, which were left on the ground by the house, process server Ernesto Martin Herrera wrote in the sworn affidavit.

The subpoena ordered Paxton, a Republican, to testify in hearing Tuesday morning in a civil lawsuit in which multiple Texas-based nonprofits want to resume helping pregnant residents obtain abortions in other states. That includes paying for out-of-state abortion providers and providing financial aid to those seeking abortions, as well as providing interstate travel to those providers.

The nonprofits say their abortion-assisting activities had ceased shortly before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which enshrined the federal right to abortion for decades, in a 5-4 vote in June. The high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization also threw out another case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which had largely upheld the right to an abortion established by Roe.

Paxton in a pair of tweets late Monday night claimed he was showing concern for his family and attacked the media for reporting on the affidavit, without denying the substance of the document.

“This is a ridiculous waste of time and the media should be ashamed of themselves,” Paxton tweeted in response to a Texas Tribune article.

“All across the country, conservatives have faced threats to their safety — many threats that received scant coverage or condemnation from the mainstream media,” his tweet said.

“It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family,” he said in a second tweet.

Herrera’s affidavit said that he arrived at Paxton’s house Monday at 8:28 a.m. and was greeted at the front door by a woman who identified herself as Angela. When he told her that he was trying to deliver the subpoenas to Ken Paxton, she told him that the AG was on the phone.

Herrera, who said he recognized Ken Paxton inside the house through glass on the door, offered to wait for him. Angela replied that Paxton “was in a hurry to leave,” according to Herrera, who observed a black Chevy truck in the driveway and then saw another car arrive there.

At about 9:40 a.m., Herrera said he saw Paxton exiting his garage. Herrera walked up the driveway toward Paxton and called out his name, at which point “he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the…