Zach Despart
@zachdespart
Investigative reporter @texastribune. Alum @houstonchron & @uvmvermont. NY native. Dalmatian dad.
A few months ago I noticed something unusual: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is increasingly outsourcing big cases to private lawyers — even though his office has 700+ attorneys in-house, with several specialized divisions. So we dug in...
Texas Lawmakers Repeatedly Failed to Take Action on Flooding propublica.org/article/texas-…
As the Texas Legislature convenes in a special session, in part to address flooding after the July 4 Kerr tragedy, we found that they repeatedly underfunded such efforts & did not pass key recommended legislation to help rural communities w/ @LChurchilll propublica.org/article/texas-…
Texas AG Ken Paxton hired a former staffer to work on a recent case. As a state employee, her labor would have cost taxpayers $641. As a private attorney, Paxton allowed her to bill $3,780 an hour, so that day of work cost taxpayers $24,570. propublica.org/article/ken-pa…
Texas AG Ken Paxton has grown increasingly reliant on pricey private lawyers to argue cases on behalf of the state, rather than the hundreds of attorneys who work within his office. These are often attorneys with whom he has personal or political ties.propublica.org/article/ken-pa…
Texas AG Ken Paxton is increasingly relying on outside counsel for the state’s litigation despite overseeing hundreds of staff attorneys. Those private lawyers are eligible to be paid thousands of dollars per hour and have secured payouts of millions of dollars Via @zachdespart
Proud to have edited this excellent investigation from @zachdespart about TX Attorney General Ken Paxton's increasing use of pricey outside lawyers, rather than the hundreds of attorneys he has on staff. Read the latest from @propublica & the @TexasTribune propublica.org/article/ken-pa…
He learned that Venezuelans inside the same #Texas immigration detention center were sent to #Guantanamo. He asked his wife to record in case something happened. A month later, he was among the 230+ men the U.S. sent to the Salvadoran prison #CECOT. youtu.be/UHBmbQCOYzQ
Today we published our 2nd story investigating the backgrounds of 230+ Venezuelan men Trump deported to Salvadoran. We did a first ever case-by-case analysis and found half were in the middle of their immigration cases, including dozens seeking asylum propublica.org/article/venezu…
Texas, which never expanded Medicaid, is insulated from much of the cuts that will hit other states. But the ACA is another story. Between the bill and the expiration of Biden-era tax credits, TX could see the largest jump in its uninsured rate in years. texastribune.org/2025/07/18/tex…