Dan Patrick blasts 'wasted taxpayer funds' for Ken Paxton impeachment. Here's the cost.

A special report by the Texas State Auditor's Office revealed that the state spent more than $5.1 million for the 2023 impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton — and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the chamber that acquitted the top lawyer, is not pleased with the cost of what he called "an ill-fated political gambit."

The report enumerates the costs of the Texas House's investigation and Senate's impeachment trial of the attorney general, who was accused of taking bribes and misusing his office. The House overwhelmingly voted to impeach Paxton on 20 counts, and the Senate, largely along party lines, acquitted him of all charges.

According to the audit, the House spent more than $4.4 million, most of which went to "contracted professional services," or outside attorneys and investigators.

By comparison, the Senate spent about $435,000 to administer the trial. The majority, $325,000, went to outside professional services, including the required cost to print the record of the trial in the Senate Journal.

The attorney general's office spent close to $230,000, while the Legislative Reference Library and the Texas Legislative Council expended about $8,500 combined.

Patrick, who served as the trial's presiding officer and has often criticized the House's decision to impeach Paxton, chided former House Speaker Dade Phelan over the cost of the proceedings, arguing that the 2023 leader of the lower chamber concealed records after the lieutenant governor called for the post-impeachment audit.

"As I said from the very beginning, taxpayers have a right to know how much of their tax dollars were spent on former Speaker Dade Phelan’s failed political gambit," Patrick said in a statement Friday. "Former Speaker Phelan left the speakership withholding the House’s impeachment records, despite repeated widespread calls for him to release the records in the name of transparency."

The failed ouster of the attorney general ultimately contributed significantly to Patrick's and Paxton's successful campaign to push Phelan, R-Beaumont, out of the speakership this legislative session. Though Patrick's and Phelan's relationship was turbulent, the lieutenant governor has maintained warmer relations with Phelan's ally-turned-successor Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock. Patrick has publicly thanked the new House speaker for his "commitment to transparency."

"When I asked new Speaker Burrows to release the House’s impeachment expenditures, he gave me two boxes of documents almost immediately, which I promptly handed over to the state auditor," Patrick said. "Now that taxpayers have the facts about how former Speaker Dade Phelan frivolously wasted taxpayer funds for an ill-fated political gambit, we can put this shameful epoch of our state’s history behind us."