Former U.S. Attorney John Bash announced his candidacy Wednesday for Attorney General of Texas.
Since 2020, Bash has worked as co-chair of Quinn Emanuel’s national appellate practice and co-managing partner of the firm’s Austin office. In that role, Bash has addressed corruption issues at the IRS and represented billionaire businessman Elon Musk in a defamation lawsuit filed against him in 2023.
Bash’s announcement comes after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday announced his plans to run for the Senate seat currently occupied by Republican Sen. John Cornyn in the 2026 election. Paxton’s Senate campaign website is now live.
Paxton has served for three terms as Texas Attorney General. He was elected in 2014 and began working as Texas AG in January 2015.
Bash is the first candidate to announce his intention to run for Texas Attorney General,
Bash was the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas under President Trump. Gov. Greg Abbott also appointed Bash as a constitutional law expert to the state’s inaugural Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council.
“Over the coming months, I will re-introduce myself to Texans across the state and work to earn their trust and their votes. But as this campaign unfolds, we must all realize what is truly at stake: preserving our system of constitutional government and free enterprise for generations to come,” Bash said in a news statement.
As U.S. Attorney, Bash targeted drug trafficking, human smuggling, corruption, child abuse, murder, and terrorism. He secured life sentences for a cartel leader, a human smuggler behind 10 deaths, and convicted national motorcycle gang leaders. He also ensured a couple suspected of abusing 25 children received effective life sentences.
Bash also served as a former law clerk to conservative Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Brett Kavanaugh.
A native of El Paso, Bash, 43, graduated from Harvard College in 2003. In 2006, he received a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Bash is married to Zina Bash, a senior partner at Keller Postman, former special assistant to President Donald Trump, senior counsel to Paxton, deputy policy director for Sen. Ted Cruz, and law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh. They live in Austin, and have two sons and a daughter.