Brent Webster
Brent Webster is the First Assistant Attorney General of Texas and AG Ken Paxton’s top deputy. During Webster’s tenure, Texas sued the Biden administration more than 75 times, with Webster’s name frequently appearing right below Paxton’s on lawsuits. This litigation has included advancing Texas’s extreme abortion policies, trying to stop the federal government from cutting dangerous razor wire in the Rio Grande, and trying to block background checks on gun show firearms purchasers, in addition to challenging public health vaccine requirements, opposing protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation under Title IX, and assailing other environmental and immigration issues. Brent Webster is on Stephen Miller’s list of lawyers who have the “spine” to carry-out commands by Donald Trump, if he were to become president again.
Webster has also been at the center of deploying lawfare against corporate political rivals. In September 2021, Webster and Paxton, along with nine Republican AGs, filed an amicus brief in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of a Florida law regulating how large social media companies moderate content.
Paxton, Webster, and their team famously attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election by suing four battleground states in Texas v. Pennsylvania. Texas obviously lacked standing to block other states from counting the votes of Americans living there, but that did not stop their naked, partisan pursuit and false claims. The State Bar of Texas brought a professional misconduct case against Webster for his work on it, describing Webster’s representations as “dishonest.” The bar complaint, though ultimately dismissed, stated that “His allegations were not supported by any charge, indictment, judicial finding, and/or credible or admissible evidence, and failed to disclose to the Court that some of his representations and allegations had already been adjudicated and/or dismissed in a court of law.” Webster argued that he should have immunity from consequences for these actions because he was a public official.
Webster has played a central role in defending Paxton from allegations of serious misconduct levied by other attorneys in the Texas AG’s office, including claims to the FBI for federal criminal investigation of their allegations of bribery. These whistleblower complaints ultimately led to an impeachment effort that failed in the Texas legislature due to partisan voting to protect Paxton from accountability, despite the evidence of misconduct that was introduced as part of the impeachment process.
A key component of that controversy was an internal investigation assailing the whistleblowers. While the Texas AG office refused to publicize who in the agency worked on the report, the Houston Chronicle noted that “the body of the report indicates that a key author was Paxton’s top deputy,” Webster, who was hired the day an internal investigation was initiated in response to the whistleblowers. He wrote in an email a few days into the job that “One of my tasks is to collect our agency documents and other evidence to determine what has transpired internally with our agency.“” Some whistleblowers were subject to multi-hour interrogations by Webster. Not all of the seven whistleblowers that reported Paxton to the FBI resigned; four were fired by the agency with Webster’s help. That same month, five complaints were filed against Webster, claiming they were retaliated against in violation of the Texas Whistleblower Act.
Discussing Webster and Aaron Reitz, who formerly worked in the AG’s office, one of the whistleblowers from Paxton’s trial told impeachment investigators, “I would tell you that those two individuals, there have been many complaints of sexual harassment by the female employees up on the eighth floor. Most all of them have left. And their complaints were varied.” The Office of the Attorney General asserted that it “found no record of any such complaint.”
Before joining Paxton’s office, Webster spent ten years as a criminal prosecutor for Williamson County, including as the First Assistant District Attorney and general counsel to the District Attorney’s Office. In 2016, Webster ran for a seat on the state’s highest criminal court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, but lost in the Republican primary.
This profile has been updated.