Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wasted no time jetting off on yet another vacation with his alleged girlfriend Tracy Duhon after the one-two punch of a devastating midterm loss and the finalization of his divorce.
Indeed, the ink had hardly dried on the divorce papers when Paxton had already packed his bags for the tropics, according to reporting by TMZ.
Pictures and videos obtained by TMZ show Paxton and Duhon walking through the terminal at San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday night, the day of his final divorce hearing. One witness told TMZ they heard the duo fretting about their bags making it to Fiji.
At the Wednesday divorce hearing, Paxton’s ex-wife, Republican state Sen. Angela Paxton said she’d reached a division of property and debts that was “fair and equitable to both me and my husband,” the New York Times reports.
Angela Paxton filed for divorce last July on “biblical grounds,” citing “recent discoveries,” which court proceedings later revealed involved allegations of adultery. The couple, who married in 1986, had reportedly stopped living together in June 2024, just one month after Ken Paxton met Duhon.
Duhon reportedly came into the Texas attorney general’s life at the Kentucky Derby in May 2024, which he attended along with Duhon’s then-husband Troy, the Times reports. One month after the Derby, Paxton and his wife stopped living together. Two months later, Tracy Duhon filed for divorce from her husband of 35 years.
Paxton and Duhon have since moved in together, according to the New York Times. The pair reportedly share a home in a gated community in Frisco, just outside Dallas.
The pair have rarely been photographed together in public, but when they are, they frequently appear to be on vacation. This summer, they jetted off on vacation to Europe. In another clip that surfaced this summer, the pair appeared to be celebrating New Year’s Eve with U.S. fugitives in Dubai.
This week’s trip also might raise eyebrows because, as Texas Attorney General, Paxton has come under scrutiny for his frequent, lavish travel. He’s still in office, after all.
This is what politicos refer to as the “lame-duck period,” when an outgoing official still occupies an office before it changes hands — in this case to Democrat Nathan Johnson. Paxton’s term as attorney general ends in January.
An investigation by The Texas Tribune and ProPublica found that Paxton took nearly 1,000 trips since 2015 accompanied by a state-funded Department of Public Safety (DPS) security detail, costing taxpayers a total of $3.3 million.
Destinations for those excursions included Napa Valley, ski towns in the Rockies, the Caribbean, Disney World, and overseas destinations such as Italy, Greece, Iceland and Dubai. Of those 1,000 trips, researchers for the Tribune and ProPublica could connect only 138 to state business.
“By any measure, the amount of trips he’s taking is excessive,” Chris Toth, the former executive director of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), told the Current over the phone, adding that one of the problems is “the amount of time it’s causing him to be out of the office.”
“You can’t do your job, you can’t lead, if you’re always out of the office,” Toth added.
Paxton’s latest escapade follows his historic U.S. Senate loss to state Rep. James Talarico, a defeat that handed Democrats their first statewide victory in Texas in over three decades. Some Republicans, including Karl Rove and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, have attributed the GOP’s Texas mass extinction event to having Paxton — a candidate mired in corruption allegations — at the top of the ticket.
No wonder Ken needs a vacation.
