James Talarico speaks at the Paper Tiger in San Antonio last month. Credit: Michael Karlis

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico is demanding that his opponent, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, “release the files” about a man indicted for child sexual abuse who spent just 29 days in a Texas jail after striking a deal with Paxton’s office.

The renewed calls from Talarico — a Democratic state representative — for Paxton to release details about the deal reached between the AG’s office and former Waco attorney Adam Hoffman come after a video tweeted out Wednesday shows Paxton refusing to answer questions about his relationship with the man.

“Why did you give a plea deal to a child sex predator? Do you have anything to say about that?” Acyn Torabi, senior digital editor with progressive media company Meidas Touch, asks Paxton in the clip. “Should he be registered as a sex offender in Texas?”

In the clip, Paxton doesn’t respond to Torabi’s questions.

For those not following the case, Hoffman was initially indicted for continuous sexual abuse of a child. However, following a mistrial, he struck a deal with Paxton’s office and pleaded guilty to reduced charges of indecent assault and displaying harmful material to a minor.

The AG’s Office reached its deal with Hoffman despite the lawyer signing a judicial confession in which he admitted to his “intent to arouse or gratify my sexual desire, touch the [victim’s genitals]” and “acted without the complainant’s consent.”

Further complicating matters is Paxton’s close relationship with the attorney who represented Hoffman in the case.

Indeed, Hoffman’s attorney is the same lawyer that represented Nate Paul — a close friend of Paxton’s and central figure in the corruption scandal that led the Republican-led Texas House to attempt to impeach him in 2023.

Talarico is now requesting that Paxton “release the Hoffman files.”

“If there’s one thing we should all agree on — Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and progressives — it’s that no one, not even the Attorney General of Texas, should be able to cover up crimes against children.”

Paxton’s silence about the Hoffman scandal comes as he and Talarico are locked in a virtual tie to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate, according to the latest polling released this week by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...