Texas Indictment Of Delay Small Potatoes Compared To FED Abramoff Investigation

[Nbadan]

DeLay Indictment May Be Overshadowed by Looming Abramoff Probe


Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Tom DeLay, the highest-ranking U.S. House leader ever to face criminal charges, called his indictment yesterday ``one of the weakest, most baseless'' in American history. Even if he's right, bigger legal battles may lie ahead.

The larger legal challenge for DeLay may center on a task force led by the U.S. Justice Department that's investigating Jack Abramoff, the indicted lobbyist who boasted of his relationship with DeLay.

Even as DeLay faces the charge in Texas state court in connection with corporate donations that allegedly were used to help fund the Republican takeover of the state legislature in 2002, ``he is inevitably also going to be under investigation by federal prosecutors'' in the Abramoff matter, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a Washington watchdog group that has criticized DeLay.

Delay, 58, who stepped down temporarily as House majority leader after being indicted, once called Abramoff ``one of my closest and dearest friends.'' He has traveled to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, an Abramoff client, on trips organized by Abramoff's law firm and has blocked efforts to apply U.S. minimum wage and labor laws to the commonwealth.

He also sided with another Abramoff client, Tyco International Inc., in opposing efforts to stop federal contracts from going to the Bermuda-based company and other firms that have incorporated overseas to cut their tax bills while maintaining their business in the U.S.

Taking a Toll

Former Representative Robert Walker of Pennsylvania, now chairman of the Washington-based lobbying firm of Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, said the allegations against DeLay are taking a toll.

"There's no doubt that these kinds of things hurt,'' said Walker, who lost a race for majority whip to DeLay after the Republicans won control of the House in 1994. "We'll have to see what the facts show.''

Abramoff was indicted in August by a federal grand jury in Florida in connection with the purchase of a casino cruise line, SunCruz Casino Ltd., in 2000. Separately, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee has started an investigation of him and partner Michael Scanlon -- a former DeLay aide -- for their lobbying activities on behalf of casino-operating Indian tribes. The two men took in $66 million in fees from the tribes they represented, according to the Senate panel, which is planning a fourth public hearing on the issue later this year.

Two former DeLay aides, Tony Rudy and William Jarrell, have also gone on to work for Abramoff at his lobbying firms.

Congressional Probe

DeLay was rebuked three times last year by the House ethics committee; one charge involved his holding an energy-industry fund-raiser in 2002 while Congress was considering legislation that would affect the companies. Now, he faces new allegations that he took trips funded by Abramoff and other lobbyists in violation of House rules.

Abramoff boasted of his relationship with DeLay when he sought the Tyco contract, and of his links to the Republican leadership when he sought the Marianas' business. DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden dismissed the significance of Abramoff's claim to have connections with DeLay, saying lots of people in Washington say they have ties to politicians.

"It comes as no surprise that a lobbyist or public-affairs representative in Washington, D.C., would claim they have access to elected officials,'' Madden said in a Sept. 23 e-mailed response to a question.

A Series of Charges

Delay's indictment yesterday was the latest in a series of charges stemming from the 2002 Texas state elections. The indictment handed up by the grand jury in Austin alleged that DeLay and two associates, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, were involved in an effort to use corporate donations to aid Texas legislative candidates in violation of state law.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle previously indicted Colyandro and Ellis, as well as DeLay's political-action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, and the Austin-based Texas Association of Business, a corporate group.

The latest indictment says that $190,000 in corporate donations were sent to the Republican National Committee, which in turn made $190,000 in donations to Texas candidates, helping Republicans capture control of the legislature for the first time since just after the end of the Civil War.

`Political Retribution'

``It is a charge that cannot hold up even under the most glancing scrutiny,'' DeLay, 58, said at a press conference in Washington. ``This act is the product of a coordinated, pre- meditated campaign of political retribution.''

``The grand jury returned the indictments that the grand jury thought were appropriate,'' Earle said at a press conference in Austin. ``The law makes such contributions a felony. My job is to prosecute felonies. I'm doing my job.''

Earle said that 12 of the 15 officials whom he's prosecuted in his three decades as district attorney have been Democrats. He once charged himself with missing a deadline to file campaign- finance reports in the early 1980s. A judge fined him $200.

After the 2002 state elections, the new Republican majorities in the legislature redrew the congressional district lines; as a result, Texas sent six more Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004; Democrats picked up two seats in the rest of the country. That expanded the Republican advantage to 30 seats, their largest since capturing control of the House in 1994.

"It's taken a while and we can't undo the 2002 elections, but we can hold those who cheated in those elections accountable,'' said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, an Austin-based group that has called for a special prosecutor to investigate DeLay. ``There's some satisfaction that the criminal process is working its way out.''

Bloomberg (http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=auNbMNxcIE1U&refer=home)

Republican should wake up and smell the coffee, Tom Delay's political career is over. If the State doesn't get him the FEDS eventually will. DeLay's dealings with the business owners in the Northern Marianas Islands clearly show that he took money from foreign business owners in return for his position in Congress to influence legislation that would allow these business owners to avoid labor standards for their impoverished women employees. That's treason.

[boutons]

"Tom Delay's political career is over"

From everything I read, Hastert presenting Delay's demise as only temporary until he beats this political rap is BS.

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washingtonpost.com

DeLay Faces Tough Road Back to Top

Indictment, Ethics Questions, Abramoff Case Are Obstacles

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 30, 2005; A06

For the first time in more than a decade, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) arrived at work yesterday without a leadership title attached to his name. Sidelined from his post as majority leader by a criminal indictment in Texas, the man who accumulated extraordinary power on his way up the ladder faces a difficult and uncertain road back to those heights.

The money-laundering indictment back home represents just one of the obstacles DeLay must overcome before he can seek restoration as a member of the House GOP leadership. The other obstacles include a possible House ethics investigation; the scandal involving well-connected GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, which has touched former DeLay staff members; and a 2006 reelection campaign that would have been difficult even without the indictment.

Even if he is able to beat the indictment in Texas and avoid other potential problems, there is no guarantee that his colleagues will want him back. At some point, they may decide that it is in their interest politically to move beyond the DeLay era, regardless of the status of his legal situation.

With post-DeLay leadership fights already in the offing and with growing concern about a deteriorating political climate that has less to do with DeLay than with Iraq, gasoline prices and President Bush's problems, House Republicans may find themselves torn between personal admiration for DeLay and a cold-eyed judgment of what is best for the party. "They've already turned the page," a GOP strategist said yesterday.

DeLay has chosen to fight his indictment the way he has waged most of his battles, with certitude in his cause and public expressions of confidence and resolve. If his lawyers have advised DeLay not to talk about the case, he has ignored their counsel, giving interviews on television with the frequency of someone who has just won an election rather than one who has just received legal papers.

In an interview yesterday on CNN, DeLay again denounced Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle as a vicious partisan and said that his lawyers are demanding an early trial under Texas law. Under that scenario, DeLay said, the case could be resolved by the end of the year.

Speaking of Earle, he said: "He made sure I was indicted because he knew I had to step aside as majority leader. And that is what's going on here. It is a political witch hunt, trying to do political damage. . . . In my case, he did it in conjunction and working with the Democratic leadership here in Washington, D.C."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called DeLay's charge "completely false."

DeLay also said he had no day-to-day control over the activities of Texans for a Republican Majority, the political action committee that is at the heart of the indictment, but he insisted that all actions taken by PAC officials were legal. "They did a legal transaction that's done by Democrats and Republicans," he said.

That tenacity has impressed some of his colleagues, who say perceptions that Earle is on a partisan vendetta have created a reservoir of sympathy and support for DeLay that could be crucial to his hopes of coming back to power. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said that, even as a temporary backbencher, DeLay will wield significant influence both with the leadership and with other members.

"He's a very powerful and effective force inside the Republican conference, and at this stage, the sympathy and support for him is so strong that he is going to be exceptionally effective if he picks his shots," Cole said.

"Tom and I disagree on a lot of issues," said another House Republican who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "But I've always admired his bull-dogged determination to get things done. He has a lot of admirers in the conference who admire his ability to get things done, like I do, but also who agree with him. So there is a distinct possibility that he could come back."

But Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution said the political conditions may never be right for DeLay's return, even if he wins his case in Texas. "I just think it's very unlikely," he said.

DeLay may continue to wield influence in the House even in the absence of his leadership position. But House members and GOP strategists said DeLay must avoid appearing to be continuing to run the House from the sidelines, lest the rule requiring that he step aside would appear to be a sham.

Meanwhile, the unfolding federal fraud and public corruption investigation into Abramoff's dealings with Indian tribes, Congress and federal agencies is a potentially significant problem for DeLay and the GOP.

Abramoff helped DeLay and conservative Republicans who took control of Congress in the 1990s channel millions of dollars in campaign contributions from traditionally Democratic-leaning K Street lobbyists. Among the well-connected congressional staffers Abramoff hired to lobby with him were several DeLay aides, notably press aide Michael Scanlon, a central figure in the investigation who sources close to the probe have said has been in discussions with prosecutors.

DeLay, who once described Abramoff as a good friend, traveled with an entourage of aides and family members to St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2000 for a luxury golf outing arranged by Abramoff and paid for by two of the lobbyist's clients. DeLay was Abramoff's guest at skyboxes Abramoff maintained at MCI Center and the Redskins' FedEx Field, and his staff members were flown to a Super Bowl game in Florida and to the U.S. Open in Pebble Beach, Calif.

The House ethics committee admonished DeLay three times in the past. And its former chairman was dumped after clashing with DeLay. The committee is still mired in internal disputes, but Democrats and Republicans said yesterday that the committee will probably have to address the DeLay issue next year.

Beyond that, DeLay must win reelection. Last November, he won with 55 percent of the vote, a relatively unimpressive showing for a veteran House leader. As part of a Texas redistricting that DeLay engineered and that led to Republicans gaining five seats in that state, DeLay's district lost some GOP voters. What had been considered a potentially tough campaign became even more difficult with Wednesday's indictment.

Some Republicans were already speaking of DeLay's accomplishments in the past tense yesterday, noting that, whatever happens, he will be remembered as one of the most important architects of modern conservatism. Others said that, however long the odds facing DeLay, they would never rule out the return to power of a politician of such focus, energy, determination and iron will. "Nobody ever got rich writing DeLay's obituary," said former DeLay spokesman Stuart Roy.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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One of the ugliest, nastiest, most corrupted, lying, unethical sonsofbitches ever to cross the national stage is roadkill, and his own party is gleefully riding right over his carcass. Here's one from Texas that finally got "messed with".
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As a key pillar, even primary pillar, in the Repub and dubya rise to power, Delay's "qualities" are a comment on the entire stinking pile of shit of Repub politics and tactics, on the right-wing in general.

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September 30, 2005

The Wrong-Way Congress (NYT Editorial)

The indictment of the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, should have been an opportunity for Republicans to show the nation that they are ready to turn the page on the abuses of big-money politics and lobbyist pandering. At a minimum, you'd think the party would want to demonstrate that it had moved beyond Mr. DeLay's philosophy that Congress should feel free to break the bank with out-of-control spending and tax cuts for the wealthy as long as it made G.O.P. contributors happy.

But no. Members of the Republican caucus rushed into an emergency repair session and - quite amazingly - opted to continue their shabby business as usual. In choosing Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri as Mr. DeLay's immediate replacement, the members presented as their new face of leadership still another political wheeler-dealer best known for his deep ties to Washington's corporate lobbying industry.

A hand-groomed protégé of Mr. DeLay, Mr. Blunt promises no change in the retrogressive Republican program that has polarized the nation and driven generations of taxpayers into deeper national debt.

Sycophantic supporters are already praising the new majority leader as more of a "conciliator," with a lighter touch and "more approachable" personality - as if the lawmakers' challenge were all about their own intramural peace rather than the nation's fraying commonweal.

Speaker Dennis Hastert's initial attempt to quickly slip the majority gavel to Representative David Dreier of California caused a rebellion by conservatives who found Mr. Dreier too "moderate," even though he has spent much of his career doing Mr. DeLay's bidding. "Moderate" is a highly relative, if not extinct, word in the G.O.P. caucus. So the befuddled speaker settled on Mr. Blunt, a hidebound conservative known for his talent as the whip in forcefully delivering administration bills and corporate campaign donations.

Mr. Blunt is also good at pushing the buttons on the Capitol's mammoth political A.T.M. He hitched his wagon to Mr. DeLay soon after arriving in the House and built his reputation by pressing corporations to hire more Republican lobbyists, contribute more to G.O.P. campaign war chests and even build a "lobbyist whip" cadre of special interests eager to volunteer for service in pushing the Republican agenda.

In their shameless refusal to present a new broom to the nation, House Republicans are following Mr. DeLay's game plan. They are even making a show of keeping Mr. DeLay's leadership office vacant for his presumed return, but it is already resembling a political sepulcher more than a shrine.