Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico's campaign is asking a Texas state court to unseal a pair of depositions given by Republican opponent Ken Paxton that it says "raises substantial ethical questions."
The accusation stems from a 2019 securities fraud case between two of Paxton's former friends that forced the GOP Senate nominee to answer questions for roughly six hours under oath.
Paxton, the state attorney general, is running against Talarico, a state legislator, in one of the 2026 midterm's most closely watched Senate battles.
Forecasters have labeled the race a toss-up, despite the Lone Star state's reliable Republican voting patterns. The outcome could determine control of Congress' upper chamber in the final two years of President
Donald Trump's second term.
In an Aug. 26 formal motion filed in Texas district court and obtained by USA TODAY, the Talarico campaign is seeking to unveil Paxton's comments connected to a lawsuit against Unity Resources, a Texas-based energy company he once represented.
The 37-year-old Democratic legislator's campaign said in the motion that voters have a specific interest in seeing the sworn statements released to the public before the November general election.
"Texans have the right to know what Paxton said under oath in these proceedings and see the whole story before they go to the polls in November," the Talarico campaign's attorneys said in the motion.
The firm was originally sued by Charles Loper III, a close Paxton friend, in a case against Byron Cook, a former state legislator who served with Paxton in the Texas House of Representatives.
Loper and his father alleged that they were deceived by Cook out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which he denied in court.
Paxton wasn't a defendant in the suit, but as the company's former attorney, he was deposed in 2019 and in 2022. He also served on the firm's board and was an investor.
The first deposition has not been publicly released but was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, which reported in April that Paxton broke attorney-client privilege by allegedly providing confidential information about Unity Resources to Mitch Little, a state representative and attorney who was representing Loper.
In an Aug. 26 statement, the Paxton campaign brushed aside questions about the Talarico motion, and instead criticized their Democratic opponent's social views, which they argue are too liberal for Texas.
"James Talarico is once again proving how desperate he is to try and hide his radical record from Texans," Madison Cercy, a Paxton campaign spokeswoman, told USA TODAY in a statement.
"He's not only voted to put men in women’s sports, but he’s also repeatedly voted to raise taxes on hardworking Texans at every turn, including voting in favor of an income tax and raising property taxes," she added. "His far-left Democrat socialist ideas would raise prices even higher on Texans, which is why he’s now lying at every turn. This is nothing more than a desperate attempt to hide his own extremism and Texans will see right through it."
Paxton controversies remain lightning rod
Since winning the Republican nomination over longtime Sen. John Cornyn in May, Paxton has been trailing Talarico in most surveys over the past few weeks.
Much like Cornyn did in the primary, Democrats have centered their attacks on Paxton's personal and political controversies. Cornyn and his allies warned that Paxton would be vulnerable in the general election, even though Trump carried Texas by roughly 14 percentage points in 2024.
In 2023, Paxton was impeached by the Republican-led Texas House of Representatives on bribery charges before being acquitted by the GOP-led state Senate.
The 63-year-old attorney general made headlines again in 2025 when his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, announced their divorce on social media. She said the split was based on "biblical grounds" after being married almost four decades.
Talarico is hoping to raise further ethical questions about Paxton by publicizing the Unity Resources case. Both sworn statements were sealed by Cynthia Wheless, the judge presiding over the case. Texas campaign finance records show she donated about $1,000 to Angela Paxton in 2018.
She and her husband have doled out roughly $1,825 to both Ken and Angela Paxton's campaigns overall since 2014, according to reports. Wheless' husband, who is also a judge, later ruled to seal Ken and Angela Paxton's divorce records.
In the court motion filed early Wednesday, the Talarico campaign attorneys are asking for an oral hearing "as soon as possible" given the "sharply competitive election" for Senate, arguing that there is no legal basis to keep Paxton's testimony from public view.
This story will be updated.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Talarico campaign presses to unseal Ken Paxton deposition in fraud case
