Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is a very busy man. On the one hand, the Republican lawyer is having to keep up with a variety of serious and ongoing controversies: The Lone Star State’s chief law enforcement official is under indictment and members of his own team have made multiple criminal allegations against him.
On the other hand, Paxton nevertheless finds time to pick a variety of unnecessary fights. He recently sued pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, for example, as part of a weird gambit related to Covid vaccines. The Texas Republican also opened an investigation into Media Matters over its efforts related to Elon Musk’s social media platform. Paxton also sued Yelp as part of a dispute over so-called “crisis pregnancy centers.”
Perhaps most notably, the impeached prosecutor also thought it’d be a good idea to invest resources into interfering with Kate Cox’s life after she was confronted with a doomed pregnancy.
Alas, the list of Paxton’s unnecessary fights doesn’t stop there. The Washington Post reported:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) tried to compel a Seattle hospital to hand over information about gender-affirming treatment Texas youths may have received across state lines, according to court filings, signaling an escalation of his office’s attempts to crack down on Texans’ ability to access such health care.
Yes, it appears that Paxton, as if he didn’t have other things to do, issued investigative subpoenas demanding medical information from the Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Seattle, in case this isn’t obvious, is in the state of Washington — not Texas — but the Texas attorney general nevertheless tried to force the hospital to turn over patient information based on suspicions that families from his state traveled for medical care that Paxton disapproves of.
The Post’s report added, “Officials and doctors with Seattle Children’s Hospital signed affidavits saying the hospital has virtually no ties to the state of Texas:…
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