Who is Tony Buzbee, the eccentric lawyer who led Ken Paxton to acquittal?

Kex Paxton was . The attorney general freed himself from the impeachment attempt against him, which was approved by the House of Representatives but rejected by the Senate. Among the attorneys that the Republican hired to defend him, he highlighted Tony Buzbee, an eccentric lawyer of humble origins, a fan of sharks and former candidate for mayor of Houston.

Paxton faced a wide range of charges, including bribery, abuse of power and obstruction of justice. After defending his innocence of the 20 charges against him and 16 articles of impeachment, the 30 members of the Texas Senate opted on Saturday to acquit him of each and every one of them.

Representing the state in legal matters, it was no surprise that he chose the best lawyers to represent him throughout the process. Indeed, he recruited Tony Buzbee to head his legal team, a surname known both statewide and nationally. He was named "Lawyer of the Year" in 2015 by Texas Lawyer and once called "one of the most successful trial lawyers in the country," by The New York Times.

The construction of the "bulldozer with a flamethrower"

Buzbee was born in 1968 in a small town in Texas, his father was a butcher and his mother worked in college cafeterias. He studied at Texas A&M University, where he was a battalion commander in the Cadet Corps. He was distinguished as an NROTC Outstanding Alumnus in the Cadet Corps, as well as the Outstanding Commander in the Cadet Corps. Once he finished his formative stage, he followed his dream and entered the United States Marine Corps.

It didn't fare badly, as he received the highest honors in leadership among more than 200 Marine lieutenants. He served in the Persian Gulf and Somalia, where he led several SOC infantry units of the Marines. His natural gifts led him to be elected reconnaissance officer in command of the Reconnaissance Company of the First Marine Regiment.

After his time in the Marine Corps, he worked as an information attorney for a federal district judge in the Southern District of Texas, before being hired by one of the largest litigation firms in the country. Once he had acquired the necessary experience, he founded his own law firm. Since then, he has had a successful legal career, which took him from a Texas town to live in a mansion with his collection of high-end cars and art, the latter valued at 40 million dollars.

He is noted for defending victims of chemical disasters. For example, among his most famous cases is an agreement of $41 million for a victim of a spider bite in 2015 and a verdict of $100 million for Texas city residents injured by toxic emissions from a BP plant in 2009. He also defended then-Gov. Rick Perry in 2014, when he faced accusations of abuse of power.

Buzbee is a fan of sharks (his office is infested with them) and is usually quite flashy. For example, his neighbors will remember that in 2017 he parked a World War II tank in the driveway of his house.

Political career

He announced in 2018 his intention to run for mayor of Houston, challenging incumbent Sylvester Turner. At his campaign launch, he said the rest of the candidates were "mediocre" and promised to fight corruption, crime and state waste. Among his most striking promises was to raffle his annual salary of $ 236,000 among citizens.

He invested $10 million in a campaign that saw him win 28 percent of the vote in the first round, forcing a second vote. Unfortunately for his aspirations, he was defeated by 13 percentage points and failed to reach the mayor's office.

He relaunched his political career in August of this year when he formalized his candidacy for the Houston City Council. "I was very humbled by the last election to be honest, and I looked at it very carefully, I didn't want to be a pawn in helping someone else win. I wanted people to decide who they want to be mayor", he said at the time.

"I'm focused on the area I live in, I raised my children in District G. I want the streets to be safe, I want things to run the right way, I want the streets to be repaired when they're supposed to be. I'm going to focus on that," he said.