Elon Musk’s attorney running to succeed Paxton as Texas attorney general | KXAN Austin
Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s attorney John Bash is running to succeed Ken Paxton (R) as Texas’s attorney general, becoming the first candidate to throw his hat in the statewide race.
Bash, who is a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, said he is running because the Texas attorney general’s office is at the “forefront of all the critical legal issues facing the country, and that office should be led by the strongest possible attorney – one who is battle-tested and will be ready on Day 1.”
“I have been the U.S. Attorney under the first Trump Administration; I clerked for Justices Scalia and Kavanaugh; I’ve handled hundreds of cases before the US Supreme Court; and I’ve represented clients facing the toughest legal challenges,” Bash said in a statement to The Hill on Wednesday.
Paxton announced on Tuesday that he will run for Senate, challenging incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) after signaling his willingness to primary the four-term senator for some time.
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Bash, who was the U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Texas during Trump’s first term, is representing Musk, President Trump’s influential advisor, in a Texas defamation case.
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That defamation case?
Elon Musk facing defamation lawsuit in Texas over posts that falsely identified man in protest | The Hill
A California man who says he was harassed after Elon Musk amplified posts on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that falsely placed the man at a confrontation involving far-right protesters sued the billionaire for defamation in a lawsuit filed Monday.
Benjamin Brody, 22, is represented by Mark Bankston, a Texas attorney who won a defamation case last year against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in a lawsuit brought by families of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Brody is seeking a jury trial in Austin, Texas, and unspecified damages of at least $1 million.
Attorneys for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment left through a spokesperson.
In June, video posted to X showed a confrontation involving protesters near a Pride festival in Oregon. Some of those involved wore the same colors of the Proud Boys extremist group, according to The Oregonian. On X, some users falsely identified one of the participants as Brody, highlighting his post-college plans to work for the government to spread baseless assertions that federal agents were involved.
The lawsuit includes screenshots of Musk engaging with users spreading the posts involving Brody, including one in which Musk described it as a “probable false flag situation.” Brody, a recent college graduate who said he was in California when the event happened, came under harassment because of Musk’s reach, according to the lawsuit.
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So imagine if Musk gets his hooks into the Texas AG's office.