3.12.26 -- Amuse on X
“Sen. John Cornyn’s Open-Borders Network Exposed”
by Alexander Muse – Amuse on X
Excerpts from this article:
https://newsletter.amuseonx.com/p/a-pastor-a-hit-piece-and-an-open
There are moments in political life when something crosses your desk and you know immediately what it is. The framing is off. The sourcing is thin. The timing is too convenient. You have seen enough of the genre to recognize it on sight. That is exactly how I felt this morning when Senator John Cornyn’s campaign posted an article headlined “Paxton’s pastor joins faith team for Cornyn.“
[Texas Attorney General (TAG ) Ken Paxton is running to replace Sen. John Cornyn in the U. S. Senate.]
The implication was pointed and deliberate: if Ken Paxton’s own pastor will not support him, why should you?
I was skeptical within seconds.
By the end of the morning, my skepticism had hardened into something closer to grief.
The [Sen. John Cornyn] piece was written by Mark Wingfield.
I did not see that coming.
ASSOCIATE PASTOR MARK WINGFIELD
Mark was the associate pastor at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas for 17 years. Wilshire is the church where I was baptized. It is the church where my son was baptized.
Mark and I had breakfast at Cafe Express more than once. We canoed together. I thought I knew the man. We were not close friends, but we were the kind of acquaintances who accumulate trust over years, over breakfast tacos, over a shared understanding of what it means to take both faith and truth seriously.
Mark [Wingfield] later left Wilshire to become the executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global, a denominational news organization.
He had been a pastor and a journalist…
Two vocations, each demanding honesty; each demanding care for others.
This morning, in my view, he [Mark Wingfield] failed both of them.
MARK WINGFIELD’S SHORTCOMINGS
Let me be precise about what I am charging.
I am not saying Mark is a bad person.
I am saying he wrote something false and damaging, that he did so in service of a political agenda that he did not disclose, and that in doing so he violated both the biblical ethic that every pastor is sworn to uphold and the journalistic standards he is professionally obligated to observe.
These are serious charges. I will substantiate each of them.
THE ACTUAL TRUTH ABOUT KEN PAXTON
Begin with the headline itself. “Paxton’s pastor joins faith team for Cornyn.”
The claim embedded in that phrase is not incidental. It is the entire point of the article.
Readers are meant to absorb the idea that the man who shepherds Ken Paxton’s soul has chosen to support Paxton’s opponent.
…There is one problem with this framing: it is false.
Ken Paxton has not attended Prestonwood Baptist Church in eight years.
He is not a member there.
His ex-wife is not a member there.
He has not spoken with Jack Graham [the pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church] in over 8 years.
[Jack] Graham has not been Paxton’s pastor in any meaningful sense for nearly a decade.
The Paxtons do not even publicly name their current church, out of reasonable concern that political opponents, the sort who have spent a decade trying to destroy them, might show up to disrupt it.
To call Graham “Paxton’s pastor” in this context is not a slip of the pen.
It is the thesis of the article.
And it is wrong.
WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS ABOUT TELLING UNTRUTHS
Scripture has something clear to say about this.
Exodus 20:16 commands, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Proverbs 19:5 warns, “A false witness will not go unpunished.”
Proverbs 6:16-19 lists among the things God hates “a false witness who pours out lies.”
…It condemns any deliberate attempt to harm another person’s reputation through misleading or unverified claims.
The biblical standard is not merely that you refrain from outright fabrication.
It requires that you not create false impressions through selective framing, deceptive implication, or misleading juxtaposition…
The errors do not stop there.
MARK WINGFIELD’S LIES ABOUT PAXTON AND ATTEMPT TO IMPEACH HIM
Mark writes that Paxton “was impeached by the Republican-led House of Representatives last year but not convicted by the Senate after intervention by President Donald Trump.”
This is inaccurate…
In 2023, when the Texas Senate acquitted [Ken] Paxton, Donald Trump was a private citizen facing criminal prosecution in four separate jurisdictions.
Trump had no formal power to intervene in Texas legislative proceedings and did not.
What Trump did was to condemn the impeachment managers and publicly express his support for Paxton.
Expressing an opinion is not intervention…
MORE LIES – SECURITIES FRAUD
Then there is the securities fraud claim.
Mark writes that Paxton “has faced numerous ethics accusations, including a long-running lawsuit about securities fraud,” and goes on to suggest that Mike Buster, the longtime executive pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, “was among those allegedly swindled in the securities fraud.”
…Buster was not involved in Paxton’s securities matter.
In 2017, Buster filed a lawsuit against Rep. Byron Cook and Joel Hochberg, alleging they defrauded him of roughly $500,000 through a mineral-rights investment scheme tied to an energy asset management company.
Paxton was not named in that lawsuit and had nothing to do with it.
Buster’s lawsuit, if anything, tended to exonerate Paxton by implicating Rep. Cook and Hochberg, the very men who had been driving the legal assault on him.
PAXTON LOST HIS INVESTMENT
Here is what actually happened with the Servergy matter, as clearly as I can state it.
Paxton made a small investment in a company called Servergy Inc. and received shares in exchange for helping the founders make introductions.
He mentioned the opportunity to friends. He was not acting as a licensed broker. He was an investor passing along a tip to people he trusted.
Paxton lost everything he put in. His investment cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsequent legal fees. He did not profit.
KEN PAXTON CLEARED BY SEC
The SEC investigated, determined that Paxton was a victim of the company and its executives, and never charged him.
The company’s CEO, William Mapp, settled a civil suit with the SEC and paid a fine.
The founders of Servergy raised over $100 million from investors and lost it all, yet prosecutors never pursued them.
PAXTON DARED TO CHALLENGE THE POLITICAL MACHINE IN AUSTIN
They went after Paxton, one of the investors who lost his own money, allegedly because he had received shares in exchange for his early assistance but in reality because he dared to challenge the political machine in Austin.
How?
The answer requires a brief lesson in Texas political history.
Ken Paxton had the temerity to run against Joe Straus for Speaker of the Texas House.
In the storied history of the House, no one had ever attempted to challenge the Party’s selection for Speaker.
In the end, Straus won.
Paxton was sent to the basement of the Capitol, stripped of committee assignments, and treated as persona non grata.
Rep. Byron Cook was a Straus ally.
Making life difficult for Paxton became a project.
Dade Phelan [Speaker of the Texas House] later impeached Paxton and was also an ally of Cook and Straus.
…this was political payback for the sin of [Paxton’s] challenging the ruling faction of the Texas House.
ALL STATE AND FEDERAL CHARGES DISMISSED AGAINST PAXTON
Every state and federal charge against Paxton was ultimately dismissed by federal and state judges with prejudice.
After a decade of what can only be called lawfare, all remaining charges were dismissed on June 18, 2025.
Complete exoneration [for Ken Paxton].
MARK WINGFIELD DELIBERATELY OMITS THE TRUTH
Mark Wingfield’s article omits this entirely.
…Mark’s article fails on each count. He repeats unverified allegations as though they were settled facts. He omits the context that would fundamentally change how a reader evaluates those allegations.
He presents what is, in substance, an advocacy piece as though it were straightforward reporting.
This is not a minor stylistic lapse.
It is a categorical violation of the profession’s foundational obligations.
To add insult to injury, Mark never bothered to reach out to Ken for comment or to bother checking a single fact.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DIVORCE
Then there is the matter of the divorce.
Mark notes that Angela Paxton filed for divorce on “biblical grounds.”
This is technically true.
But the framing omits everything that gives it meaning.
The couple had been separated for years.
The infidelity at issue occurred more than a decade ago.
Ken has refused to comment on reports that his spouse has been romantically linked to multiple men since their separation - because he is an honorable man who loves his children more than winning the gossip game.
JOHN CORNYN USES FALSE INFORMATION TO DESTROY PAXTON
What is worth noting is how the divorce records became public.
In December, a far-left organization called the Campaign for Accountability, which is aligned with Democratic donors and interests including George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, filed suit specifically to unseal those records.
The Cornyn campaign subsequently used them to warn President Trump that the records would destroy Paxton’s candidacy, hoping to discourage [Trump’s] endorsement.
When Cornyn made that false claim, the records had already been released last year and contained nothing salacious.
Nearly 2 million Americans divorce each year.
The story was weaponized, not because it revealed anything disqualifying, but because the goal was to create an impression, not to inform.
SCRIPTURE CONDEMNS FALSE ACCUSATIONS
Scripture condemns this kind of thing directly.
James 4:11 says, “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.”
Proverbs 16:28 warns, “A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.”
Psalm 101:5 declares, “Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy.”
…And 1 Timothy 5:19 sets a high evidentiary standard for accusations against leaders: “Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses.”
The biblical framework requires corroboration before you repeat charges.
It requires that you seek truth, not create impressions.
It requires, as Matthew 18:15 counsels, that you address grievances directly before going public.
Galatians 6:1 urges restoration over denunciation.
Mark [Wingfield] skipped every one of these steps.
…I spent time this morning asking myself why Mark Wingfield [a man I had assumed was a Democrat given his vocal LGBTQ advocacy and embrace of Marxist Black Lives Matter ideology] would be writing a hit piece designed to help a Republican Senate candidate.
It did not initially make sense.
Then I started asking questions about why Ken Paxton left Prestonwood [Baptist Church] eight years ago.
What I found was clarifying.
Jack Graham, the senior pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, got his church entangled with the National Immigration Forum, an NGO backed by George Soros and his Open Society Foundation.
Graham was a signatory to the organization’s “Principles for Immigration Reform,” a document that advocates for amnesty for illegal immigrants.
The National Immigration Forum is not a centrist outfit.
It is a well-funded, far-left organization devoted to open-borders advocacy.
Graham’s involvement with this network corresponds precisely to the period when Paxton left the church.
That timing is not a coincidence.
Ken Paxton is a border hawk.
He has spent years fighting the Biden administration’s immigration lawlessness in court.
He would not remain in a church whose pastor was advocating for amnesty in partnership with a Soros-backed NGO.
When I looked at the other pastors Cornyn assembled for his “Faith Team,” the picture sharpened further.
Max Lucado and Robert Reyes, the other prominent names on that list, are also signatories to the same open-borders and amnesty framework.
This is not a faith team in any spiritually meaningful sense.
It is a roster of religious leaders who share a political alignment with Cornyn on immigration, the single issue where Cornyn is most vulnerable with Texas Republicans.
John Cornyn has opposed President Trump’s immigration policies, supported Democratic immigration priorities, and is broadly out of step with the conservative base of the Texas Republican Party.
Assembling a “faith team” of open-borders pastors to imply that Paxton’s own pastor has abandoned him is a clever maneuver. It is also a dishonest one.
And this is where Mark Wingfield fits.
Mark left Wilshire [Baptist Church] several years after my family did, though for different reasons.
I left because our senior pastor embraced LGBTQ ideology and began, as I described it at the time, ‘transing’ the church.
Half the congregation left with us.
A new pastor committed to Black Lives Matter ideology took over.
Mark, by contrast, went on to write a book, “Why Churches Need to Talk about Sexuality” (Fortress Press), celebrating the transing of Wilshire [Baptist Church].
His [Mark’s] political commitments are legible from his body of work.
He is not a centrist.
He is not a dispassionate observer.
He is a progressive Baptist with a clear ideological agenda, and he used his platform at Baptist News Global to serve that agenda by attacking a conservative politician [Ken Paxton] to support a progressive RINO [John Cornyn] whose immigration politics align with Mark’s own.
That is the thread that ties this all together.
Open borders. Amnesty. A network of religious leaders, some of them connected to Soros money…
John Cornyn needed religious legitimacy among conservatives.
He recruited pastors who share his immigration politics.
One of those pastors has a connection, however attenuated, to Ken Paxton’s former church.
A friendly journalist [Mark Whitfield] with Baptist credentials was dispatched to write the story up in a way that made it look like Paxton’s own spiritual shepherd had turned on him.
None of it is true. All of it is designed to deceive.
Ken Paxton has endured a decade of exactly what President Trump endured -- coordinated legal and political attacks by entrenched establishment figures who could not beat him at the ballot box and so tried to destroy him through the courts and through the press.
They tried to remove Paxton from office. They failed.
They tried to jail Paxton. They failed.
…Paxton is none of the things Mark Wingfield claimed.
Paxton is a man who lost money in a bad investment, was targeted by the allies of a political rival, endured a decade of lawfare, and was completely exonerated.
His divorce is a private matter being weaponized by cynical operatives.
His former pastor [Mark Wingfield] is not his pastor and has not been for eight years.
I am genuinely sad about Mark…He produced a piece designed to create false impressions in the minds of voters at a moment calculated to do maximum damage.
…It is opposition research dressed in clerical clothing.
CORNYN’S PLAN BACKFIRES – REVEALS OPEN-BORDERS NETWORK
Cornyn’s campaign hoped this would make Paxton look abandoned by his own faith community.
What it has actually done is:
Reveal the network of open-borders religious activists that Cornyn has cultivated;
Show voters exactly where Cornyn’s real loyalties lie on the most important issue in Texas politics right now;
Demonstrate once again that the establishment will say anything to stop Ken Paxton.
I suspect that is not the outcome they were hoping for.
ONE FINAL QUESTION
One final question.
John Cornyn was/is a longtime member of the Churches of Christ on University Avenue in Austin, Texas.
I wonder why he didn’t ask his own pastor, Keith D. Stanglin, to join his faith team.
Someone should ask John Cornyn.
NOTE: I reached out to both Mark Wingfield and Jack Graham but did not hear back from either before this went to print. If they do contact me, I will update if appropriate.
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MORE INFORMATION
To read many other articles about the important work done by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, please go to: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/
Also, I invite the public to go to my website – DONNAGARNER.ORG – where there are many articles that chronicle the important work done over the years by TAG Ken Paxton and his team. To find those articles easily, simply type into the SEARCH engine the words – KEN PAXTON or TAG PAXTON.