A former top aide to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who reported his former boss to the FBI is throwing his support behind state Rep. James Talarico’s Senate campaign.
“Ken Paxton ended my five decade career because I blew the whistle on his corruption,” David Maxwell said in the minute-long campaign ad released Tuesday.
David Maxwell served in Texas law enforcement for nearly 50 years, and he spent close to a decade working as the director of law enforcement for the attorney general’s office.
The former Texas Ranger isn’t the first person with previously close ties to Paxton who has decided to endorse Talarico. In June, Talarico’s campaign reported that Paxton’s impeachment trial attorney, Dan Cogdell, decided to back the Democratic nominee for Senate.
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Maxwell’s lengthy law enforcement career helps him know “a bad guy when he sees one,” the campaign ad says.
In 2020, after working with Paxton for over half a decade, Maxwell and a group of other top staffers reported him to the FBI for allegedly misusing the attorney general’s office and doing personal favors for Nate Paul — a real estate developer and political donor to Paxton.
Paxton’s ties to Paul led the Texas state House to launch formal proceedings against Paxton, who faced more than a dozen articles of impeachment, including making false statements and misuse of public resources. In 2023, the House voted to impeach Paxton, but he was later acquitted by the state Senate and allowed to return to his post as attorney general.
Paxton fired Maxwell and some of the other aides months after their report. In April 2025, a Texas judge ordered Paxton to pay Maxwell and four of the whistleblowers $6.6 million after they filed a lawsuit against the attorney general.
The negative campaign ads have ramped up in recent weeks in what’s now rated a “toss up” election that both parties see as a must-win Senate seat.
Talarico’s campaign has capitalized on Maxwell’s story and other legal trouble Paxton has faced to paint him as an untrustworthy candidate.
Last month, the Democrat’s campaign released an ad slamming Paxton for taking a $1,000 Montblanc pen from a security screening area at a Texas courthouse in 2012. Although Paxton eventually returned the pen, its owner, attorney Joe Joplin, endorsed Talarico in the ad.
Paxton has also run his share of attack ads against Talarico, often claiming his opponent holds a “radical agenda.” The Republican nominee released an AI-generated ad on Tuesday of Talarico repeating some of his past controversial comments on Christianity and religion out of context.
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