Texas Senate candidate James Talarico just released a campaign ad featuring an attorney who is endorsing him, in part, because he says Republican nominee Ken Paxton once stole his pen.
Back in 2013, attorney Joe Joplin was going through courthouse security when he left a Montblanc pen worth $1,000 in a tray. Courtroom security cameras showed Paxton picking up the pen and other items shortly thereafter.
Paxton later returned the pen, and a spokesman for the Texas attorney general claimed it was done in error.
Still, his opponents have attempted to tar him with the pen thief accusation for at least eight years, though Talarico’s newest ad takes a different approach.
After a voiceover tells the story about Joplin’s pen ― a gift from his wife ― and the hassles he went through trying to get it back, the ad ends with Joplin officially endorsing Talarico over Paxton. Then, the voiceover says, “Vote for James Talarico. He won’t steal your pen.”
Talarico later posted the ad on social media and once again made the bold promise: “I’ll never steal your pen.”
Axios reporter Andrew Solander noted on X that Talarico’s campaign website is “doubling down on this ad/endorsement by selling ‘not Ken Paxton’s pen’ pens in their merch store for $6.”
JS reached out to Paxton’s campaign for comment, but no one immediately responded.
The ad is just the latest example of Paxton’s very controversial past coming back to haunt him before the November election.
Earlier this week, he held a phone town hall where one of the callers asked him, point blank, “Why did you cheat on your wife?”
He has also been accused of helping a real estate developer harass his enemies if the man funded a home renovation for Paxton, and of helping cover up an extramarital affair.
Despite being impeached in May 2023 for various offenses, he was acquitted a few months later.