Joe Joplin left his pen at a courthouse security checkpoint. That was negligence. It was also abandonment. He is a lawyer and a Democrat activist. He called the courthouse to ask whether anyone had found the pen, then pressed deputies to pull security footage and identify who had picked it up. When he learned it was Republican State Senator Ken Paxton, the errand stopped being about a missing pen and became a political opportunity. He did not call Paxton. He had local law enforcement open a case and send deputies to the Paxton home.
That is an outrageous abuse of power. It is also a huge waste of taxpayer money. Had anyone else picked up an abandoned pen, no case would have been opened, and no deputies would have been dispatched. The target made the case. This was a political stunt, nothing else.
Fourteen years later, Joplin and his willing accomplices in the drive-by media still recycle the episode as if it were a scandal. It was a stunt. Joplin left the pen. That pen now sells for $387 on eBay. Ken Paxton picked it up by mistake with his own pens.