Paxton, firebrand Texas attorney general, anticipates new ally in Trump Justice Department

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he is looking forward to a “fairer shake” from the Justice Department after four years of intense legal battles against the federal government over immigration, abortion and environmental policies.

Mr. Paxton was at the forefront of his Republican-controlled state’s resistance to Biden administration policies. He filed a steady stream of lawsuits to expedite deportations, overturn greenhouse gas emissions limits and force the federal government to finish constructing the border wall.

On Thursday, he told The Washington Times that Republican states had to fight in court because President Biden wouldn’t work with state leaders. Instead, the outgoing administration was “using our taxpayer dollars to try to intimidate states like Texas.”

Mr. Paxton said he expects federal agencies to adopt more conservative-friendly policies and be willing to listen to the states after President-elect Donald Trump returns to office on Monday.

“They’re not going to be politically targeting laws that we passed to protect our state, whether it’s immigration issues or others,” he said in an interview at The Times.

Mr. Paxton said cleanup work from the Biden team remains.

Texas is negotiating with the administration to fully understand how Biden officials disposed of border wall materials. That is part of a case Texas won against the administration ordering the government to spend money earmarked for wall construction on building barriers rather than extraneous projects.

“He didn’t build the wall like he was supposed to, but he wasn’t supposed to sell any of the assets. We’re hoping to preserve those,” Mr. Paxton said.

Mr. Paxton looked back at his series of fights.

He won a skirmish over placing a floating buoy border wall in part of the Rio Grande to deter illegal immigrants from wading across the river, and he essentially won another legal tiff over the state’s attempt to take control of a border park that illegal immigrants used as a staging ground.

He lost a case that went to the Supreme Court challenging Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ deportation priorities, which eliminated the danger of deportation for many illegal immigrants.

In that case, the justices ruled that Texas didn’t have the standing to sue.

Mr. Paxton battled the administration when he defended the state’s laws that limit abortion to about six weeks of gestation.

Mr. Paxton and his solicitor general were at the Supreme Court on Wednesday to defend Texas’ law that requires adult websites to verify a user’s identity to keep obscene material from minors.

The justices appeared sympathetic to Texas’ restriction in the challenge, which was brought by adult content distributors. Advocates of that content say entering personal information violates the First Amendment.

A ruling is expected by the end of June.

“I have a very broad view of the First Amendment. And so I think adults can view, say whatever they want,” Mr. Paxton said. “Our Legislature determined that children needed to be protected. And I totally agree with that.

“There’s all kinds of things we protect [children] from because their brains aren’t fully developed, and they are not in a position to make good judgments,” he said.

Mr. Paxton, first elected in 2014, said “lawfare,” the use of legal cases to isolate political opponents, has increased in the past four years.

He pointed to a lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over an alleged nondisclosure, which was dismissed in his favor.

He said the Biden Justice Department is “very corrupt.”

“I know from personal experience. They investigated me the entire time that Biden was in office because I was suing him and winning. So they’re not about justice. They’re about lawfare, and they’re about focusing on ruining people’s lives,” Mr. Paxton said.

He said Mr. Trump will clean up the agencies so everyone will get a fair shake, regardless of political leanings.

“You need to change the name of the justice system to the injustice system because that’s where we’re at now,” he said.

Mr. Paxton has also battled state prosecutors and an impeachment trial.

He is litigating a state bar ethics complaint over his legal challenge to the 2020 election.

• Stephen Dinan contributed to this report.