The rift between “conservatives” and “moderates” within the Republican Party is widening as the campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination continues. In the past week, conservative Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has become a target of his own party. The timing and nature of the occurrences are reminiscent of the assaults on then-President Donald Trump at the conclusion of his first term.

It appears that just days after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton demanded the resignation of Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan for drinking on the job, Phelan’s lieutenants announced plans to retaliate against the AG.

Phelan initiated an impeachment against Paxton, the third official to be impeached in the nearly 200-year history of Texas. As documented by National Pulse, anti-Trump Republicans and Democrats oversaw Paxton’s impeachment. A vote was conducted two days after the announcement to affirm that the attack will proceed.

The Texas House Committee on General Investigating, comprised of three Republicans and two Democrats, drafted 20 articles of impeachment against the state attorney general for years of alleged abuse of power, bribery, and other allegations, according to Fox News.

Texas House Republicans just voted overwhelmingly to impeach Trump-endorsed Attorney General Ken Paxton after he took on Biden, Big Pharma, and our country’s Open Borders

Looks like the RINO Swamp in Texas may be deeper than the Swamp in DC

Texas voters deserve so much better

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) May 27, 2023

Former President Trump has already voiced his support for the Texas Attorney General, writing in a Truth Social post “The RINO [Republican in name only] Speaker of the House of Texas, Dade Phelan, who is barely a Republican at all and failed the test on voter integrity, wants to impeach one of the most hard-working and effective Attorney Generals in the United States, Ken Paxton, who just won re-election with a large number of American Patriots strongly voting for him,” the former president’s first message wrote. “You would think that any issue would have been fully adjudicated by the voters of Texas, especially when that vote was so conclusive….

In a Facebook Live on Thursday afternoon, State Rep. Steve Toth (R–The Woodlands) quoted from the code:

“It’s really clear. You can’t remove a statewide officeholder under an alleged accusation that occurred before the person was elected, and that’s exactly what they are doing right now,” said Toth. “This is an illegal act.”

Texas Government Code 665.081 states, “An officer in this state may not be removed from office for an act the officer may have committed before the officer’s election to office.”

Attorney General Paxton was interviewed by Matt Gaetz on Newsmax TV on Friday night. Paxton explained to viewers how the action constitutes an unlawful impeachment by Texas Republicans.

“When you expose what these liberal Republicans do, which is basically cut deals with liberal Democrats, they get really angry that the last thing they want is somebody around like me who exposes what they do,” Paxton said.

“And I’ve done that with Phelan. They tried to sneak through legislation two years ago where they were reducing the penalty for illegal voting, where I would now have to prove that they knew the law when they did it, which meant no prosecutions. We caught him, we exposed it. Those are the types of things that Phelan finds infuriating. And unfortunately for him, we caught him and we exposed it, despite the fact that he’s a Republican.”

“Are you confident that you have the votes to block an impeachment by the Texas State House?” Gaetz asked.

“No, this has been done,” Paxton replied. “I think they decided they thought I was going to lose my election to Bush, and they became very disturbed when I won. And they concocted this plan, I think months and months ago, maybe right after my reelection, thinking that the voters just were not smart enough to figure this out. They’re going to fix it.

And they began working on this in covert approximately four months ago. I first learned about this on Tuesday, when it was announced that we had been subpoenaed. They announced an investigation on Wednesday. On Thursday, the impeachment was announced. Now, on Saturday, the impeachment is proceeding. Members have not been exposed to all of the information.

They have denied us permission to participate. We have a wealth of information that would alter their investigation’s findings. They have denied our request to testify. They refused to allow us to provide them with information. They have refused to enable us to correct items that they themselves recognize as incorrect. And this is the procedure we are undergoing. They want this done because, in their opinion, the electors were not intelligent enough to get it right, and they intend to correct it.

Additionally, the vote follows an immensely productive legislative session in which critical issues such as transgender minors, abortion, and university diversity were addressed. DC Enquirer reported.

As a consequence of the vote, Paxton has immediately been suspended from his position until further notice. “Every politician that supports this deceitful attempt will inflict lasting damage on the credibility of the Texas House which I served in,” Paxton commented on Friday,