Tom DeLay indicted

[Stan]

-- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay indicted on one count of criminal conspiracy by Texas grand jury, according to Travis County clerk's office.

[Bravus]

Interesting times...

[Neil D]

And about time too!

[lazarus]

this is another example of the VAST left wing conspiracy to......hold leaders accountable....er...to....enforce our laws....maintain integrity in government.....well its just.....lets see what Fox says!

[Neil D]

Well, Reuters has explained the charges like this-

[:"blue"]DeLay has denied any wrongdoing, saying he was not involved in TRMPAC's day-to-day activities.

DeLay has repeatedly accused Earle, a Democrat, of conducting a political witch hunt. DeLay met with Earle several weeks ago to explain his limited role in the committee.

The grand jury, whose proceedings are not open to the public, has focused in recent days on DeLay's possible role in one particular transaction, the American-Statesman reported. The newspaper said if convicted on the conspiracy charge, DeLay would face a sentence of up to two years.

In September 2002, Colyandro, TRMPAC's executive director, sent a blank check to Ellis, who was DeLay's primary fund-raiser in Washington.

According to a money-laundering indictment against the two men, Ellis is accused of having the Republican National Committee launder $190,000 of corporate donations into noncorporate money that was distributed to seven candidates for the Texas House of Representatives. [/]

Hmmmm...another CEO who doesn't know what the ship is doing, eh? Remind you of Enron?

[Bravus]

Just as well his attempt earlier this year to change the rules so that someone indicted for a crime wouldn't have to stand aside from house leadership failed...

[Dr. Shane]

The shoe really is on the other foot now. I suspect we will see hypocracy all over in both political parties.

When President Clinton was impeached (which almost the same as being indited), Democrats attacked Ken Star and Nwet Gingrich. Now when Tom DeLay is indited Republicans attack Ronnie Earle.

Will Democrats that considered Ken Star to be fair game now consider Ronnie Earle to be fair game? Or will they be hypocrits?

Will Republicans that wanted the focus to remain on Bill Clinton (not Ken Star) keep the focus on Tom Delay? Or will they be hypocrits?

I say, let the wheels of justice turn. I trust the justice system at this level. It is when the poor guy (that doesn't have money for a good lawyer) gets charged with a crime that I have my doubts about the system. So let's take a good look at Tom Delay's actions. If he is innocent, let him return to his leadership position. He is a tough guy. He can give it, he should be able to take it. Politics can be rough, especially at the federal level. I didn't feel sorry for Clinton and I don't feel sorry for Delay.

And let's take a look at Ronnie Earle and his past record of prosecutions. I won't hold my breath waiting for Micheal Moore to protest outside his house like he did to Ken Star. But let's not be afraid to look as hard at Mr. Earle as we did at Ken Star.

[Dr. Shane]

If I understand his lawyer correctly, what Tom Delay was doing is very much like what Seventh-day Adventists have been doing for years.

Seventh-day Adventist exchange tithe dollars between conferences and divisions. So one division will exchange their tithe dollars for the offering dollars of another division so they can spend the dollars on things outside the salaries for pastors. ... or something like that.

Well, in Texas, political action committees or PACs cannot accept money from corporations. However in some other states they can. So Tom Delay's group took the dollars collected from corporations in Texas and exchanged then for dollars collected from individuals in other states where PACs can accept dollars from corporations. Is that walking a fine line? Most will say that indeed it is. However for us Seventh-day Adventists... well it is hard for us to say much without being the pot calling the kettle black since we do the same thing with our tithe dollars.

I will say that it should be an open and shut case. Either he is guilty or isn't. In the campaigns I have worked with we are always checking with the FEC (federal elections commision) abut what we can do and not do. I can't imagine any campaign accidently breaking the law.

[Jeannieb43]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

Shane said:

When President Clinton was impeached (which almost the same as being indited), Democrats attacked Ken Star and Nwet Gingrich. Now when Tom DeLay is indited Republicans attack Ronnie Earle.

Will Democrats that considered Ken Star to be fair game now consider Ronnie Earle to be fair game?

I didn't feel sorry for Clinton and I don't feel sorry for Delay.

And let's take a look at Ronnie Earle and his past record of prosecutions. I won't hold my breath waiting for Micheal Moore to protest outside his house like he did to Ken Star. But let's not be afraid to look as hard at Mr. Earle as we did at Ken Star.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

Good thing you're willing to look hard at the situation. This Ronnie Earle is nothing like Ken Starr.

I heard a report on NPR today. Ronnie Earle is, admittedly, a Democrat. But his prosecutions go both ways. He has prosecuted twelve Democrats, but only two Republicans previous to DeLay. He's a straight shooter, going after crime wherever it appears.

Nothing like Kenneth Starr.

[Dr. Shane]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

I heard a report on NPR today

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

I listen to NPR too, it provides me some balance for some of the radical conservatives I listen to sometimes.

True, Ronnie Earle, has went after 12 Democrats... Keep looking into that and one will find out a dirty little secret about those Democrats [whisper mode] ... they were conservative Democrats from Texas[end whisper mode]

How about Kay Baily Hutchinson? He went after her during her campaign for the Senate and once she won... oh... he dropped the case. How about that? Why would he drop a criminal case just because she got elected to the Senate?

[Neil D]

[]http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art3/0928051delay1.gif[/]

Grand jury foreman defends DeLay indictment

9/29/2005 6:32 PM

By: Hermelinda Vargas

The 12-member grand jury that indicted U.S. Rep. Tom Delay, R-Sugar Land, faces scrutiny from critics who say they are lackeys for Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

Foreman William Gibson lives in a Northeast Austin neighborhood.

It's been his philosophy not to have his picture taken because he doesn't want to be harassed, Gibson said.

Gibson isn't really afraid of that. He did his duty and that bound him to look at Tom Delay as just another Texan accused of criminal conspiracy, he said.

"I like his aggressiveness and everything, and I had nothing against the House majority man, but I felt that we had enough evidence, not only me, but the other grand jury members," Gibson said.

William Gibson defends the vote of the grand jury that indicted U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay.

The grand jury foreman also takes great exception to accusations that he and 11 other grand jury members followed the lead of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle instead of following the evidence.

"It was not a rubber stamp deal. It was not an overnight deal. If we needed extra information, it was provided to us," Gibson said.

On Wednesday, Earle would not go into details about any potential evidence against Delay. But he did describe the scheme he's accusing Delay of coordinating.

"The indictment describes a scheme whereby corporate money, which cannot be given to candidates in Texas was sent to the Republican National Committee where it was exchanged for money raised from individuals and then sent to those Texas legislative candidates," Earle said.

Gibson thinks there is enough evidence to convict Delay.

"We would not have handed down an indictment. We would have no-billed the man,[:"red"] if[/] we didn't feel there was sufficient evidence," said Gibson.

[:"red"] The evidence is there to prove Delay was involved in wrongdoing[/] and also prove that he and his fellow grand jurors acted independent of political influence, Gibson said.

[:"red"] "It wasn't Mr. Earle that indicted the man. It was the 12 members of the grand jury [/]," Gibson said.

Gibson is a former sheriff's deputy and a former investigator for what is now the Texas Department of Insurance.

[Neil D]

[:"blue"]And here is Tom Delay's side of things [/]

DeLay pledges to keep raising funds

Vows he will work with GOP leaders, charges 'frivolous'

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | October 3, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A defiant Tom DeLay said yesterday that he would continue to be active in shaping the GOP agenda on Capitol Hill and predicted he would be cleared of the ''frivolous" charge that he was part of a scheme to fund illegal corporate contributions to Republican candidates in his home state of Texas.

DeLay, who was forced to step down as House majority leader last week after he was indicted by a Texas grand jury, also hinted at his legal defense in the case. While DeLay did not deny that his political action committee raised corporate funds, he said the money was not illegally laundered by a national Republican group so it could be funneled to state legislative candidates.

''I will continue my partnership with the [House] speaker," and will ''absolutely" continue to raise campaign funds for Republican congressmen, DeLay said on ''Fox News Sunday."

''I wouldn't call it 'running the show'; I would call it working together," added DeLay, whose second-in-command title belied his enormous power and influence in the House.

The former majority leader -- who has stepped down temporarily as required under House rules -- said he expects to return to his post, the duties of which are now under a caretaker team of three senior House Republicans.

''This is politics at its sleaziest," DeLay said of the criminal indictment against him. ''My lawyers tell me that this is so frivolous, so over the top, so embarrassing to the judiciary that we ought to be able to get it out of here pretty quickly."

DeLay is accused of being part of a plan to help elect GOP candidates to the Texas Legislature by channeling corporate contributions to their races. Many Republicans won their state legislative races, giving the GOP a majority in the Legislature, which then drew congressional district lines to favor Republicans.

Republicans picked up five congressional seats in Texas in 2002, expanding a narrow majority and further entrenching DeLay's power as leader.

While it is not illegal -- and in fact commonplace -- for legislatures to protect incumbents and their own respective parties when drawing congressional district lines, the prosecutor in the case, Ronnie Earle, said DeLay and his associates went too far by soliciting corporate donations to aid the state legislative candidates.

While Earle has not spelled out specific evidence against DeLay, the indictment says conspirators collected $190,000 in corporate funds and sent it to the Republican National Committee, which then contributed a similar amount to key GOP state legislative candidates. Corporate funding of state legislative races is illegal in Texas.

''We drew the line years and years ago in terms of corporate money. Everybody knows that," said former representative Martin Frost, a senior Texas Democrat who lost his reelection campaign in 2002, largely as a result of the new district lines. DeLay ''has every right to push his beliefs as far as he can, but he doesn't have the right to break the law," Frost said in an interview.

DeLay didn't deny yesterday that the political action committee he founded has solicited corporate funds, but he suggested the money was not deliberately funneled to the state legislative candidates through a federal committee.

He said TRMPAC, the committee he founded, was allowed to raise corporate funds for ''administrative" purposes, and sent ''leftover" money to a national Republican committee, which he said was already funding state legislative races. Asked whether the $190,000 was laundered through the RNC's state legislative race fund, DeLay said, ''it hasn't been proved that there was a list provided along with the check. That's what the courts are for."

Democrats are pointing to DeLay's ethics woes -- he has been chastised on other matters already by the bipartisan House Committee on Standards and Official Conduct -- and are accusing Republicans of abusing their power. Senate majority leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, is also under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission on allegations of insider trading.

''There's a culture of corruption and cronyism" in the Republican-controlled Congress, Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said on NBC's ''Meet the Press" yesterday.

Republicans at first rallied around their leader, and Representative Tom Reynolds, a New York Republican who chairs his party's congressional campaign committee, yesterday accused Earle of launching a politically-motivated prosecution. But some Republicans are anxious to get in place a permanent leadership not tainted by ethics complaints.

''We got elected basically by saying we would live by a higher moral standard, and I don't think recently we have," Representative Christopher Shays, a moderate Connecticut Republican, said on CNN yesterday.

''Tom's problem isn't just this. It's continual acts that border and go sometimes beyond the ethical edge. They may not be illegal, but he's always pushing that ethical edge to the limit," Shays said.

[Bravus]

DeLay apparently lied about whether he had been spoken to by the Grand Jury. He was not subpoenaed but had an open invitation to speak to them, and the prosecutor spoke to DeLay and his lawyer early on, whereas DeLay is claiming that he was never spoken to and they never heard his side.

[Neil D]

Quote:

---

the prosecutor spoke to DeLay and his lawyer early on, whereas DeLay is claiming that he was never spoken to and they never heard his side.

---

OF COURSE, you realize that the lawyer never told Delay about this, dontcha?????

[/tic]

[Dr. Shane]

Before we get to gitty about the possible demise of "The Hammer", let's take a deep breath and let the wheels of justice work. Will those here rubbing their hands together with glee and anticipation of a politician's ruin be willing to admit they were wrong if Tom Delay is aquitted? Will they go so far as to write a letter to the editor of their local paper?

I am not going to gleefully rub my hands together but rather let the system work. An inditement really doesn't mean much. I was indited for a crime that I didn't commit once. And I never got to speak with the grand jury first - nor my lawyer. In my case, they had so little evidence they had to dismiss the case before trial - but the inditement will always be on my record.

[Neil D]

Quote:

---

Will those here rubbing their hands together with glee and anticipation of a politician's ruin be willing to admit they were wrong if Tom Delay is aquitted? Will they go so far as to write a letter to the editor of their local paper?

---

I wish you would go and re-read the two posts that I put up here...The first was against TD. The second was in defense of him. This comment really insinuates motives other than to inform and tends to dampen discussion. And it bothers me when comments are made that dampen discussion. It occurrs to me that to encourage discussion, the result may encourage community letters to the editor, and maybe a change of opinion...

As it is, I am left with the taste that I am not to discuss this situation in any form and am something less than a nice guy...

To encourage discussion, what is it that TD did that made it against the law? IOWs, why is it wrong to do what he did? What are the ramifications of raising funds in the way that TD did? Can you explain why it is wrong to move money around the way he did?

[Michelle]

I know I'll regret this and probably shouldn't do it, but I want to point out some points of "rhetoric" to which Shane is responding.

Quote:

---

Neil: And about time too!

---

Quote:

---

Lazarus: this is another example of the VAST left wing conspiracy to......hold leaders accountable....er...to....enforce our laws....maintain integrity in government.....well its just.....lets see what Fox says!

---

Quote:

---

Neil: Hmmmm...another CEO who doesn't know what the ship is doing, eh? Remind you of Enron?

---

This all before Shane said anything. When Shane DID then speak, he said,

Quote:

---

The shoe really is on the other foot now. I suspect we will see hypocracy all over in both political parties.

Will Democrats that considered Ken Star to be fair game now consider Ronnie Earle to be fair game? Or will they be hypocrits?

Will Republicans that wanted the focus to remain on Bill Clinton (not Ken Star) keep the focus on Tom Delay? Or will they be hypocrits?

---

Then Bravus, Shane, and Neil all posted some pretty non-inflammatory news-y information.

Then Shane said

Quote:

---

Will those here rubbing their hands together with glee and anticipation of a politician's ruin be willing to admit they were wrong if Tom Delay is aquitted? Will they go so far as to write a letter to the editor of their local paper?

---

To which Neil responded

Quote:

---

I wish you would go and re-read the two posts that I put up here...The first was against TD. The second was in defense of him. This comment really insinuates motives other than to inform and tends to dampen discussion. And it bothers me when comments are made that dampen discussion. It occurrs to me that to encourage discussion, the result may encourage community letters to the editor, and maybe a change of opinion...

As it is, I am left with the taste that I am not to discuss this situation in any form and am something less than a nice guy...

---

Ummmm, I don't think Shane was exactly responding to the last two posts Neil put up, and it's disingenuous to insinuate that Shane is trying to make someone not discuss the topic. He is trying to point out that there will be hypocracy on both sides, including his! Is it THAT hard to recognize or acknowledge hypocracy from the Left? I mean, come on, folks. It's not that hard to see.

Okay, Now I'll duck back inside my hole and once again be reminded why I never post in this forum!

M

[Dr. Shane]

Just as a note, the draftsman that works in the office next to mine actually comes into my office rubbing his hands together in glee whenever bad news breaks about President Bush or the Republicans.

[Bravus]

I'm not so much rubbing my hands, but DeLay has a long record of ethics violations/boundary pushing, so seeing him indicted and being happy is just delighting in justice. And while the Edmonton Journal probably won't be interested in a letter on the topic, I'll publicly apologise for that delight here if DeLay is exonerated completely, in a process that has not been tampered with in any obvious way.

[Neil D]

Quote:

---

Ummmm, I don't think Shane was exactly responding to the last two posts Neil put up, and it's disingenuous to insinuate that Shane is trying to make someone not discuss the topic. He is trying to point out that there will be hypocracy on both sides, including his! Is it THAT hard to recognize or acknowledge hypocracy from the Left? I mean, come on, folks. It's not that hard to see.

---

I am sorry, Michelle, if my attempt at keeping on track has offended you. The discussion seems to boils down to who is MORE hypocritical than the other which is bogus in the extreme. And seeing extreeemes is getting old as well.

Believe me, when I say that I am tired of which party is more hypocritical than the other. That is why I was attempting to keep the discussion on TD, not on either Shane, nor myself.

I appologize if my attempt to reconnect the tire with the road [aka get the discussion back on track] offended you.

[Bravus]

Agreed that it's not that hard to see hypocrisy (please note spelling, all!) on all sides. I don't remember a huge number of calls from Republicans to 'just wait for the process to take its course without prejudging' in the case of Clinton's impeachment... But at the same time, I don't think noting that DeLay has been indicted is itself prejudging - it's simply reporting the news.

Anyway, we shall see what happens - and I've said I'll publicly apologise if he's exonerated. Will those n the right mirror that promise with one to accept it, rather than claim a 'vast left-wing conspiracy', if he's convicted?

[Dr. Shane]

I do not get happy over my enemy's demise. I don't like Tom Delay's tactics either. However that doesn't mean I will be joyful if he gets convicted of a crime. I would be joyful if the Republicans didn't elect him to a position of authority or if those in his district didn't re-elect him to Congress. I do not wish and hope that my enemies commit crimes and then get convicted.

[Dr. Shane]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

Will those n the right mirror that promise with one to accept it, rather than claim a 'vast left-wing conspiracy', if he's convicted?

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

I would except I am more in the middle than the right and haven't made any claim that Tom Delay is innocent. However the prosecuter did tell a group of Democrats he was speaking to that he would be the man to bring Tom Delay down. So it isn't much of a leap to question his motives.

[Bravus]

heh, I should have anticipated the 'I'm in the middle rather than the right' comment (which I agree with, btw), and just said 'to the right of me' <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

I do not wish and hope that my enemies commit crimes and then get convicted.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

No, but if they do commit crimes I hope they are convicted (my friends too, for that matter). It's called justice.

[Dr. Shane]

Yes, and that is why I believed the Senate should have convicted Bill Clinton of his impeachment. He was guilty of purgery and obstruction of justice. The Republicans in the House of Representatives took great risk in following the rule of law and impeaching him. The Republicans in the Senate decided to go with public opinion polls. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich lost his job because of his brave stand for the rule of law. If we are going to take doctors' medical liscense away from them for doing the same thing, the Prsedient shouldn't be able to get away with it either.

If Tom [Delay] is guilty I hope he does get convicted. He is called "The Hammer" because he plays ruthless politics. Well, he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. He has played ruthless politics and now it is coming around and biting him. Even if he is innocent, he doesn't have my sypathy. If he can give it, he needs to be able to take it too.