AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A real estate developer whose relationship with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was at the center of the Republican’s historic impeachment trial in 2023 pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal charge of lying to a financial institution.

The plea by Nate Paul, whose company is based in Texas, was entered before a U.S. magistrate judge and still must be reviewed by a district judge, court documents show. Records did not indicate when Paul might be sentenced.

Paul claimed that federal investigators acted improperly when they raided his Austin home in 2019. He later sought help from Paxton, and the relationship and dealings between the two men played a prominent role in lawmakers impeaching Paxton, who was later acquitted in the Senate.

Paxton has long denied wrongdoing and was not mentioned in federal indictments against Paul, which accused the developer of making false statements to banks in order to obtain more than $170 million in loans.

The Associated Press emailed a request for comment to federal prosecutors on Wednesday. Staff for Paul’s attorney, Gerry Morris, said he would have no comment.

Paul would figure heavily in 20 articles of impeachment filed against Paxton, who was accused of abusing his power and bribery in order to help the developer, who gave the Republican a $25,000 campaign donation in 2018.

The impeachment came about after eight of the attorney general’s top deputies reported him to the FBI in 2020. All were subsequently fired or quit and half the group later sued under the state’s whistleblower law.

Paul initially faced a dozen charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, but online documents noted only the plea to the single charge of lying to a financial lender.

After three years with the Texas football team, quarterback Quinn Ewers is moving on.

On Wednesday, Ewers announced that he is declaring for the 2025 NFL draft. The decision became public in a video posted to his Instagram and X accounts.

Pro Football Focus currently rates Ewers as the No. 7 quarterback in the 2025 draft class.

QUINN EWERS NFL DRAFT: Scouting report for Texas football QB

The decision by Ewers to leave Texas for the NFL is hardly a surprise. Ewers considered entering the NFL draft after the 2023 season but opted to return to school for another year. Despite a report that he had been offered $6 million to enter the transfer portal and exhaust his eligibility elsewhere, Ewers also recently told ESPN that the did not expect to play college football during the 2025 season.

So all Wednesday’s news did was officially close a chapter for both Ewers and Texas. After skipping his senior year of high school and spending a semester at Ohio State, Ewers announced on Dec. 12, 2021 that he would transfer to Texas. He won the starting job ahead of the 2022 season and remained the Longhorns’ starter through last week’s 28-14 loss to Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 10.

Over 36 starts, Ewers completed just under 65% of his passes while throwing for 9,128 yards and 68 touchdowns. He led Texas to a 27-9 record, the 2023 Big 12 championship and two appearances in the College Football Playoff semifinals.

Among his memorable performances were a four-touchdown outburst against Oklahoma in 2022, a 349-yard, three-touchdown game at Alabama in 2023, a 452-yard, four-touchdown performance in the 2023 Big 12 championship game and a three-touchdown effort at Michigan this past September. Against Arizona State in the quarterfinal round of the 2024 College Football Playoff, Ewers threw for 322 yards and completed a 4th-and-13 pass that kept UT’s season alive.

Ewers, however, never fully lived up to the hype associated with being rated as a perfect prospect in a 2021 recruiting class that also included future first-round picks Caleb Williams, J.J. McCarthy and Drake Maye. Injuries cost Ewers multiple games in each of his seasons at Texas, and fans and media members alike spent much of the past two seasons speculating over what the UT offense would look like with his backup, Arch Manning, under center. Texas is also still searching for its first national championship since 2005.

Still, Ewers leaves Texas with the third-most touchdown passes and third-most passing yards in school history. Colt McCoy, Vince Young and Bobby Layne, who all have had their numbers retired by Texas, are the only quarterbacks who won more games with the Longhorns.

“I’m super proud of Quinn. He’s taught me a lot, probably unknowingly to him, because what he went through every year dealing with injury, what he goes through where I don’t know if he’d ever live up to the standards of what everybody thinks he’s supposed to be,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said after the Cotton Bowl. “But at the end of the day, all he did was show up every day and work and be a great leader and be a great teammate. And that’s a real credit to him because human nature, in this day and age, is to look at Twitter, to look at Instagram, to look at social media and articles written and fan boards and whatever else. And you can ride that emotional roller coaster of whatever you think public opinion could be, and that could be the opinion of one or a hundred or whatever.

“But this guy never did that. All he did was come to work every day. All he did was be a great teammate. All he did was work on his craft, get himself as healthy as he could when he was injured, and then show up when it was time to show up.”