Jan 30 (Reuters) - Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton must face an ethics lawsuit by state attorney regulators over a case he brought challenging results of the 2020 election, according to a court ruling posted on Monday.

Judge Casey Blair on Friday denied Paxton's bid to dismiss the case on jurisdictional grounds. Blair said he was not ruling on the merits of the case......

The ruling is a setback for Paxton, who had argued that his work as the top Texas state lawyer was beyond the reach of Texas attorney ethics regulators. Potential penalties if the case succeeds could include suspension or disbarment.

The Texas State Bar, an agency that oversees licensed attorneys in the state, filed the lawsuit against Paxton in state court in Dallas last May. The complaint said Paxton made "dishonest" statements in a lawsuit that sought to toss 2020 election votes in four states.

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) plans to seek court sanctions against former President Trump in her civil fraud lawsuit, her office told a state judge on Tuesday.

James’s office said formal answers to her $250 million lawsuit filed by Trump, his three oldest children and the family’s businesses last week were “deficient in a host of ways” and merit sanctions for them and their attorneys.

“Defendants falsely deny facts they have admitted in other proceedings, they deny knowledge sufficient to respond to factual allegations that are plainly within their knowledge, and they propound affirmative defenses that have been repeatedly rejected by this Court as frivolous and without merit,” Kevin Wallace, senior enforcement counsel in James’s office, wrote.

Wallace asked New York Judge Arthur Engoron for a meeting as soon as possible to set a briefing schedule for the sanctions motion.

James filed the lawsuit in September alleging the former president and his businesses for years manipulated property values for investment and loan benefits, the culmination of her multiyear investigation.

She named the former president, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and a number of the family’s business entities as defendants and asked for $250 million in financial penalties.

Jane Roberts, the wife of Chief Justice John Roberts, acknowledges having represented a wide variety of public officials — including senior Justice Department officials and Cabinet members — as they transitioned to jobs in the private sector, according to testimony in an arbitration hearing to resolve a lawsuit filed by an ex-colleague against her former legal recruiting business.

A partial transcript of that testimony was included in a complaint submitted to the House, Senate and Justice Department filed in December on behalf of the former colleague.

The complaint, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, accuses the chief justice of failing to acknowledge the full extent of his wife’s work in his ethical disclosures, presenting her as a salaried employee of her firm rather than one who receives commissions from law firms, some of which have cases before the Supreme Court.


Jane Roberts’ placements included at least one firm with a prominent Supreme Court practice, according to the complaint, which also includes sworn testimony from Roberts herself, in which she notes the powerful officials — whose agencies have had frequent cases before her husband — for whom she has worked.

“A significant portion of my practice on the partner side is with senior government lawyers, ranging from U.S. attorneys, cabinet officials, former senators, chairmen of federal commissions, general counsel of federal commissions, and then senior political appointees within the ranks of various agencies, and I -- they come to me looking to transition to the private sector,” Roberts said, according to a transcript of a 2015 arbitration hearing related to her former colleague’s termination.

In her testimony, Roberts also noted the benefit of working with senior government officials: “Successful people have successful friends.”