The Texas Tribune reports the chairman of the Texas Republican Party, Matt Rinaldi, worked as the attorney for Farris Wilks, the billionaire funder of Defend Texas Liberty, a Super PAC that happens to be the largest single funder for the state party and that also has ties to white nationalists including Nick Fuentes.
Rinaldi is one of several state GOP leaders who have benefited from their connections with wealthy Texas donors. Rinaldi did not support the impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton–accused of corruptly using his office to benefit donors–a signal to Republicans in the state senate, who acquitted the (allegedly) corrupt Paxton.
“In my two decades of involvement with the Texas GOP, I am not aware of anything even resembling the relationship between a state chair and a major donor that Matt Rinaldi has with Farris Wilks,” said Mark McCaig, a former member of the Texas GOP’s executive committee who noticed the relationship in recent SEC filings. “It’s certainly reasonable to ask whether chairman Rinaldi is working towards the betterment of the party, as he pledged he would do in 2021, or if he is more interested in promoting the agenda of Farris Wilks at the expense of a unified and functional party.”