Delay Tom Bak

recover delay718 txt

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see also tag

==*

dem docket delay OG tx midterm redist ok’d by tx scotus? sued Delay for racketeering

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drags feet on trump, backs hastert

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/267083-tom-delay-feds-ready-to-indict-clinton

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| June 5, 2024 5:11 pm

Ben Johnson of The Washington Stand exposes “The Spiritual Warfare Behind the Trump Conviction.”
In a shocking development, Christian nationalist Jerry Newcombe did not like “Bad Faith,” the documentary about the dangers of Christian nationalism.
Randall Terry’s quixotic presidential campaign has scored the endorsement of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
Gene Bailey, host of the “FlashPoint” program, says that “nobody is going to give it to you 100 percent straight, besides us.”
Finally, religious-right activists insist that former President Donald Trump has a deep Christian faith, yet whenever he is asked about it, he inevitably responds by talking about how much evangelicals love him and rambling on incessantly.

wow WE

oN APRIL 7 THECAMPAIGN for America's Future, a liberal group, bought a full-page ad in the conservative Washington Times. The ad displays photos of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, Dwight Eisenhower, and Tom DeLay. "Once upon a time," the ad begins, "conservatives stood for honest government. . . . Now, their chosen leader"--that would be DeLay, the House majority leader--"is the symbol of money and corruption in Washington."

The ad appeared the day after both the New York Times and the Washington Post recycled moldy charges against DeLay in front-page stories. It was all part of an ongoing effort to discredit the Texas Republican, who has been admonished by the House Ethics committee more times than any other member of Congress but whose main offense seems to have been success: boosting the power of his party, passing legislation Democrats don't like, and raising large amounts of money.

Some of that money goes to his family. The New York Times story--"Political Groups Paid Two Relatives of House Leader"--reported that DeLay's wife and daughter have been paid more than $500,000 as employees of his political action committees since 2001.But, as DeLay's staff was quick to observe, employing your husband, wife, son, or daughter and paying them with campaign funds violates no law or congressional ethics rule--and, according to the Los Angeles Times, at least 39 members of Congress do it, from both parties.

Meanwhile the April 6 Washington Post story highlighted an August 1997 "fact-finding" mission DeLay, his wife, and top staff took to Moscow. According to forms DeLay's staff filed with the House travel office, the trip was paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative nonprofit on Capitol Hill. The trip lasted six days and cost about $60,000. The Post story distilled and strengthened reporting from the March 18 edition of National Journal's CongressDaily. CongressDaily's article cited "two sources familiar with travel planning," and began: "An August 1997 trip to Moscow by then-House Majority Whip DeLay and four congressional staffers was funded largely by a Russian energy firm or a key affiliate which was a client of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff."

Abramoff, as all Washington insiders know, is under investigation by the Justice Department, the Interior Department, the IRS, the FBI, a special interagency task force, and the Senate Finance and Indian Affairs committees, among others, for allegedly defrauding Indian gaming interests of somewhere between $66 and $88 million (see Andrew Ferguson's "A Lobbyist's Progress," The Weekly Standard, Dec. 20, 2004). Until recently Abramoff sat on the board of the National Center for Public Policy Research. In 1997, when the Center bankrolled Delay's trip to Russia, he was employed as a lobbyist at the firm Preston Gates Ellis& Rouvelas Meeds LLP. House rules forbid members from having travel bills paid for by lobbyists.

Sometime in early 1997 Abramoff registered as a lobbyist for Chelsea Commercial Enterprises Ltd. Chelsea was incorporated--here the documentary record is contradictory--either in the Bahamas or in Jersey, an island in the English Channel that is known for its lax financial disclosure laws. In his registration, Abramoff specified that Chelsea was paying him to build "support for policies of the Russian government for progressive market reforms and trade with the United States." To that end he was paid $260,000 in 1997 and, according to the Post, "less than $10,000 in 1998." Chelsea also paid a New York law firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, $180,000 in '97 and about $30,000 between '98 and 2001 to work on its behalf.

"Another source" handed the Post reporters a memo taken from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, dated May 6, 1997. In the memo, Ellen S. Levinson, then a lobbyist for Chelsea at Cadwalader, outlines a year-long schedule of junkets to Russia. The six junkets mentioned in Levinson's memo, the Post reported, included a trip for an "advance team" in May 1997, a visit by journalists and foreign policy wonks in June, and a trip by DeLay in August. Abramoff was cc'd on the memo.

DeLay's chief of staff at the time, Ed Buckham, may have been part of that "advance team." In a January 21, 1998, AP story (headline: "You Won't Find Congressional Travelers in Coach"),Buckham,who now runs his own lobbying firm, said he had taken the Concorde from Paris to Washington in July 1997 after visiting Russia in advance of his boss. Buckham said his Concorde ticket, like the August 1997 junket, was paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research. "We told the travel agent to just find the best flight," Amy Ridenour, the president of the National Center, told AP at the time. "Ed took the Concorde. I didn't realize that's what the travel agent picked."

But where did the National Center get the money? The Wall Street Journal's David Rogers provided an answer on April 13. "The Russia trip was covered from an estimated $165,000 payment [to the center] from an international law firm seeking to promote exchanges with Russian businessmen," Rogers wrote--which would suggest the firm in question was the New York-based Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. But it could also have been another firm, of course--Abramoff's, perhaps, or one friendly to Abramoff, who was friendly with Ridenour. Both were friends of DeLay's.

Wherever the money ultimately came from, the trip was a success. DeLay, his wife, and his top staff were joined in Moscow first by Ridenour, then Abramoff, then Julius Kaplan, a lawyer on the Chelsea account at Cadwalader. They golfed, met with Russian religious leaders, visited tourist attractions, andspoke with Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.One night the group attended a sumptuous dinner party hosted by the heads of NaftaSib, a Russian energy company. DeLay met NaftaSib's president, Alexander Koulakovsky, and its executive vice president, Marina Nevskaya. NaftaSib was another client of Abramoff's at Preston Gates.

Little is known about NaftaSib's executives. Alexander Koulakovsky "graduated from Odessa Technological Institute in 1975," according to his company's literature, and left the Russian oil giant SibNeft in 1993 to start NaftaSib. Other than that I could find only an October 26, 1994, dispatch from Tass, the Russian news agency, which reported that anAlexander Koulakovsky was "arrested by authorities of Hatichohe, Northern Honshu, Japan, . . . for illegal storage of a handgun and 150 rounds of ammunition."

Even less is known about Marina Nevskaya. The NaftaSib promotional material says she "taught at the Military Diplomatic Academy and lectured at Moscow State University" until 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Apparently she is "the author of several publications on the economy of Southeast Asia, economic cooperation between the USSR and Asian countries and textbooks on oriental languages." She is fluent, we are told, "in English, Vietnamese and French." There is no record of her in the Nexis news database prior to 2005.

Except this. The August 23, 2004, issue of the Russian Oil and Gas Report had an article on NaftaSib's bid to buy the remnants of YUKOS, the giant Russian oil firm run by Mikhail Khodorkovsky until he became a prisoner of the Russian government. The article--published six months before the latest controversy over DeLay--contains this aside:

The names of Kulakovsky and Nevskaya, not very well known in Russia, are sufficiently well known in the U.S. Thus, in 1997 Naftasib paid for the Moscow part of the visit of leader of the house of representative of the US Congress Tom DeLay. Nevskaya accompanied DeLay on that visit to Moscow.

If NaftaSib paid for DeLay's trip, however, it did so indirectly. And thus we--and DeLay's critics--reach an impasse. Looking back, lobbyists were involved in the planning and execution of DeLay's trip to Russia; Russian energy interests took credit for the trip; the only question is who paid for it.

And that question has already been answered, more or less: the National Center for Public Policy Research. And according to the House rules, as long as lobbyists don't pay a congressman's expenses directly, everything is peachy. Were all such congressional trips to receive the level of scrutiny applied to DeLay's Russia boondoggle, it's safe to say, few of his colleagues would escape censure.

As Amy Ridenour said in a statement last week: "The National Center for Public Policy Researchwas careful to pay all the expenses associated with Congressman DeLay's trip." If that's so, DeLay may still be a symbol of the unappealing intersection of money and politics in Washington. But symbolism has never been a firing offense.

Matthew Continetti is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.

Matthew Continetti Magazine

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bs academic bill

This broad-based and even global acclaim for higher education in the United States is strangely at odds with the concentrated political attacks that Cole warns us about and that the academy is currently experiencing. It is particularly out of step with the dark and dysfunctional picture of the academy painted byDavid Horowitz and his Center for the Study of Popular Culture. [2] If Horowitz were simply a disaffected political crank, as many have hitherto regarded him, then his views on the academy could be easily dismissed. Such dismissal would seem to be all the more in order following his disastrous testimony before the legislative subcommittee inPennsylvania in which he was forced to recant as unsubstantiated [3] several of the cases that he had been widely circulating as documentation of alleged malfeasance in the academy.

Oddly, however, his campaign goes on. Horowitz, with assistance from Karl Rove and the former House majority whip, Tom DeLay, has briefed Republican members of Congress on his Academic Bill of Rights campaign and DeLay has even distributed copies [4] of Horowitz’s political primer The Art of Political Warfare: How Republicans Can Fight to Win to all Republican members of Congress. Rove refers to Horowitz’s pamphlet as “a perfect pocket guide to winning on the political battlefield."

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/09/return-of-the-hammer/

...

DeLay’s visit to Capitol Hill was previously planned, but the news that a Texas appeals court had overturned his money-laundering conviction turned it into something of a victory lap. Republican House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), whose rise to power was partly enabled by the downfall of The Hammer,might have felt more ambivalent.

Will DeLay try for a comeback? He told theWashington Post that when it comes to politics he “never left it,” but now “There’s too much other things that the Lord wants me to do. But around the political arena, I’m around. They never got rid of me.”

That’s a bit muddy, but DeLay has in fact moved on: He’s now a registered lobbyist. However, unlike many of his former colleagues who turn to K Street to cash in after long careers accumulating power in Congress, DeLay is specializing in lobbying on a less lucrative issue — human trafficking. Whether it’s by choice or because corporate clients don’t exactly flock to hire ex-lawmakers with criminal convictions hanging over them, DeLay has represented only one client, Argus International, since he first registered last year. Argus is a security contractor whose top executives are heavily involved with efforts to stop human trafficking and the international sex trade (the company’s CEO for instance, is on the board of a small faith-based anti-human trafficking nonprofit). All of the lobbying reports DeLay has filed have listed only human trafficking and the sex trade as his issues.

Since August 2012, Argus has paid his firm, First Principles, about $130,000.

The Travis County, Texas, district attorney’s office, which won its case against DeLay in 2010, has said it will appeal this week’s decision.

During his rise to power in Congress, DeLay accumulated a lengthy list of financial supporters, many of whom are familiar to today’s GOP leadership. But times have also changed.

According to Center for Responsive Politics data, DeLay’s single largest source of campaign contributions over the years was AT&T: The company’s PAC gave him more than $153,000 and individuals employed by the telecom giant chipped in another $6,000. AT&T is still a big deal in Washington, but DeLay’s second biggest cash source — tobacco maker Reynolds American — has taken a tumble.

In 2006, DeLay’s last year in office, the Reynolds PAC handed out $1,081,000 in donations to federal candidates — 87 percent of which went to Republicans. In the 2012 cycle, the PAC gave out just $537,000.

DeLay’s eighth biggest source of support was Enron, whose executives contributed more than $68,000 over the years. Enron’s PAC gave another $29,000. Obviously, that cash spigot ran dry long ago; Enron was laid to rest in the early aughts by a massive case of corporate fraud.

One of the biggest individual donor to DeLay’s campaigns wasTexas construction magnate Bob Perry,who combined with his wife to give DeLay and his leadership PAC $74,500 over the years. In 2012, Perry and his wife gave $23.4 million to conservative super PACs, making him the third-largest funder of outside groups. But Perry died earlier this year — though not before giving some final political donations.

See a complete list of DeLay’s all-time biggest donors below.

The events of 2003 in Texas were important to the political history of this country. Congressman Tom DeLay led a Republican effort to gerrymander the state's thirty-two congressional districts to defeat all ten of the Anglo Democratic incumbents and to elect more Republicans; Democratic state lawmakers fled the state in an effort to defeat the plan. The Lone Star State uproar attracted attention worldwide. The Republicans won this showdown, gaining six additional seats from Texas and protecting the one endangered Republican incumbent. Some of the methods used by DeLay to achieve this result, however, led to his criminal indictment and ultimately to his downfall.

With its eye-opening research, readable style, and insightful commentary, Lines in the Sand provides a front-line account of what happened in 2003, often through the personal stories of members of both parties and of the minority activist groups caught in a political vortex. Law professor Steve Bickerstaff provides much-needed historical perspective and also probes the aftermath of the 2003 redistricting, including the criminal prosecutions of DeLay and his associates and the events that led to DeLay's eventual resignation from the U.S. House of Representatives. As a result, Bickerstaff graphically shows a dark underside of American politics—the ruthless use of public institutional power for partisan gain.

- See more at: http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/biclin#sthash.GSpaGvxI.dpuf

BW bk:

Intl Peace Ops Assoc delay staff ed Buckham, Karl Gallant (armpac) Tony Rudy 9delay liar)rudyworked w/ behrends in dana office early 90's) 337 (w/ erik? said def analyist actually unpaid intern)

DeLay is also a self-declared member of the Christian Zionists, anEnd-Time factionnumbering 20 million Americans. Christian Zionists believe that the 1948 creation of the state of Israel marked the first event in what author Hal Lindsey calls the "countdown to Armageddon" and they are committed to making that doomsday clock tick faster, speeding Christ's return.

In 2002, DeLay visited pastor John Hagee's Cornerstone Church. Hagee preached a fiery message as simple as it was horrifying:"The war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse!"he said, urging his followers to support the war, perhaps in order to bring about the Second Coming. After Hagee finished, DeLay rose to second the motion. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "what has been spoken here tonight is the truth from God."

Control the GOP Congress. The tobacco industry played a crucial role in the "Republican revolution." As Peter H. Stone reports, campaign contributions and a revolving door of operatives— working jointly for tobacco and for key Congress members—have locked the industry and the top Republican leadership in a tight embrace (see The Nicotine Network [3]). For instance, Stone relates how Majority Whip Tom DeLay has put a tobacco operative in charge of his main political organization, ARMPAC.

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delay laundered $ , out for himself, a bully, so rove used abramoff to run him 236 (ab reed and grover CR pals, buten ussr flag abe says not to coexist w/ left "our job is to remove them power permanently" 236. JA exec asst Susan Ralston went to WH to work for KR, hired ex-staffer Scanlon; had access to staffers to VP, AG, sec Int, trade reps 237 200 mtgs in 10 mos

JA paid Copley News Service col Doug Bandow 2K/art'l 240 (aslo a CTT guy, who does it all the time" 241 //to armstrong? on ed puff pieces?

Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, was convicted in November 2010 of money laundering and conspiracy stemming from his role in a scheme to channel corporate contributions to Texas state races in 2002. In January 2011, Mr. DeLay was sentenced to three years in prison.

Mr. DeLay was once one of the most powerful and polemical Republican congressmen in the state’s history. He resigned in 2006, after serving two decades in Congress, on the day he was indicted in Travis County, a Democratic bastion.

singlehandedly gerrymandeded tx

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JG worked w/ ex OIRA Barb Kahlow now staff for delay hitlist of 57 regs (redux RR and NG) pesticides, coal mine dust, bloodborne pathogens 69 JG sent 13 env refs back to agencies (12 oposed by ind) sent "prompt letter" new and secret way to overturn regs? 69

Delay House2003 energy act 38b tax breaks for polluters (2Kx ROI on lobby) oil and gas 47.5b$, coal and utilities 9.3B; nuke 9b, 2.4b for renewable but mostly went to converting NAT"L GAs To COAL?! 107 strat

rfk2;

1/95 Tom Delay invites 350 lobbyists to dismantle regs 30 learned from watt disaster PR,

so plant tree foto op and used free mkt rhet to hide; Luntz did PR (wrote Contract for

Am) snuck riders on key bills, "supermandate" regulatory reform, ~ unfunded

mandates etc but PIRG etc caught them, 1 mil signatures, so mod gop opposed; after

gov't shutdown newt lost public support. TDelay: we lost debate on envir"

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ORIGINS?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_a_Republican_Majority_Political_Action_Committee

Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee

Jump to: navigation, search

Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee, also known as ARMPAC, was former House Majority Leader Thomas D. DeLay's leadership committee. ARMPAC was "quietly closed" at the end of April 2007 "after a decade-long run as one of the most influential - and infamous - PACs run by members of Congress." [1]

DeLay's Political Money Carousel

ARMPAC was run by Jim Ellis, who was also the founder of Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), DeLay's leadership political action committee.

TRMPAC was "launched, in part, with a $75,000 contribution" from ARMPAC, Texans for Public Justice reported June 28, 2004.

According to Federal Election Commission records, "in its first year DeLay's ARMPAC pulled in $312,000; in 1996, $681,000; and in 1998, $904,000. This year [2000], ARMPAC is on track to collect a staggering $2 million.The list of ARMPAC political contributors is twenty pages long, from**Philip Morris**and the**National Rifle Association**to**banks**,**oil companies**, insurers,**drug makers**,**Merrill Lynch**, and**Microsoft**." --*Texas Observer*, February 4, 2000.

See the main article on Tom DeLay and Complaints, Investigation & Indictments for details.

SourceWatch Resources

Thomas D. DeLay: Related SourceWatch Resources

External links

Michael Weisskopf and David Maraniss, "Forging an Alliance for Deregulation," Washington Post, March 12, 1995.
Alison Mitchell and Marc Lacey, "DeLay Inc.. -- A special report: A Lawmaker Amasses Power, and Uses It. A CLOSER LOOK: DeLay's Fund-Raising Vehicles," New York Times, October 26, 1999.
Roberty Dreyfuss, "DeLay, Incorporated," The Texas Observer, February 4, 2000.
Ellen Miller, "Auditing DeLay," TPM Cafe, August 15, 2005.
"Republicans return DeLay PAC donations," The Hill, November 26, 2005.
News Release: "CREW FEC Complaint Against Rep. DeLay PAC – ARMPAC – Results in $115,000 Fine. One of Largest Fines in FEC History," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 20, 2006.
Paul Kane, "DeLay's PAC closes shop," Capitol Briefing Blog/Washington Post, May 1, 2007.

Also see:

Categories:

===

seek god site:Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay CNP Connections

http://www.seekgod.ca/abramoffdelay.htm pretty extensive

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Delay quoted 1999 book that only Xian "offers a comprehensive world view " 14 promoted a Biblical worldview" our system started falling apart when we denied God 2001 blamed teaching evo for Colimbine (nhe has BS in bio) Mr 2002 Boehner asked Ohio schools to teach creationism b/c censorhship thrwarts critical thnking skills TTLG {through the looking glass/bizarro) foolme2x

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wreck crew: even on his way out, lobby gave him $ just in case he survived

eg NOV 17, 2005

INDICTMENT DOESN'T DETER LOBBYISTS HOPING TO KEEP FAVOR WITH DELAY

The DeLay Money Machine Represents the HMOs, Pharmaceutical & Big Energy Industries

http://www.ourfuture.org/...

According to an e-mail invitation distributed earlier this week, thehost committee for tonight's DeLay fundraiser is:

Gary Andres, James J. Baker, Jim Barnett, Anthony Bedell, Wayne Berman, Tim Berry, David Bockorny, Jim Boland, Britton Clarke, Red Cavaney, Kirsten Chadwick, Mike Chappell, Roy Coffee, Chris W. Cox, Amy Jensen Cunniffe, J.D. Derderian, Robert Dotchin, Marcel Dubois, Gov. John Engler, Craig Felner, John Fish, Chris Giblin, Geof Gradler, Bruce Gates, Michael Hanson, Steve Hart, Ralph Hellmann, Mike Henry, Susan Hirschmann, David Hobbs, Mark Isakowitz, John Keliher, Tom Kuhn, Ed Kutler, Jennifer Lukawski, Kathryn Lehman, Glenn LeMunyon, Nelson Litterst, Jeff MacKinnon, Drew Maloney, Ann Meyer, Dan Meyer, Susan Molinari, Bill Morley, Jeff Munk, Bill Paxon, Tom Pyle, George Ramonas, Stuart Roy, Tim Rupli, Bob Rusbuldt, Bill Sarpalius, Rick Shelby, John Shelk, Bob Slaughter, Juli Sullivan, Edlu Thom, David Thompson, Carl Thorsen, Bill Timmons, Matt Trant, Mark Valente, Todd Walker, Robb Watters, Bruce Wilkinson, Darren Willcox, and Jim Whittinghill.

This event may be the single largest gathering of lobbyists ever to host a fundraiser for one member of Congress.

===

Tom DeLay, Out on Bail, Reunites with Abramoff buddy Ralph Reed at Faith and Freedom Rally

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thu, 03/08/2012 - 1:50pm

Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) is out on bail after he was found guilty of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. DeLay was also subject to an investigation over his links to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In fact, DeLay played a central role in the Abramoff scandal on the illegal use of Indian gambling money.

Another member of the Abramoff’s crooked scheme was Religious Right activist Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition. Abramoff stealthily financed Reed’s anti-gambling organization in Alabama with money from casinos in Mississippi that were afraid of increased competition. Reed claimed he didn’t know it was gambling money, claims Abramoff laughed off as “ridiculous.” In a humiliating defeat, Reed lost his 2006 race to be the Republican nominee of Lt. Governor of Georgia, and in 2009 foundedthe Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Does it come as a surprise to anyone that DeLay, while out on bail, will be speaking at a Faith Freedom Coalition rally in Texas?

Surely, DeLay and Reed are the best people to talk about the importanceof America’s “time-honored values” and “sound public policy at every level of government.”

The only thing that could make DeLay and Reed’s Texas rally more perfect would be if Jack Abramoff himself made an appearance. Too bad he now works for the ethics watchdog United Republic.

===

DeLay's Political Money Carousel

ARMPAC was run by Jim Ellis, who was also the founder of Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), DeLay's leadership political action committee.

TRMPAC was "launched, in part, with a $75,000 contribution" from ARMPAC, Texans for Public Justice reported June 28, 2004.

According to Federal Election Commission records, "in its first year DeLay's ARMPAC pulled in $312,000; in 1996, $681,000; and in 1998, $904,000. This year [2000], ARMPAC is on track to collect a staggering $2 million. The list of ARMPAC political contributors is twenty pages long, from Philip Morris and the National Rifle Association to banks, oil companies, insurers, drug makers, Merrill Lynch, and Microsoft." --*Texas Observer*, February 4, 2000.

See the main article on Tom DeLay and Complaints, Investigation & Indictments for details.

SourceWatch Resources

Thomas D. DeLay: Related SourceWatch Resources

External links

Michael Weisskopf and David Maraniss, "Forging an Alliance for Deregulation," Washington Post, March 12, 1995.
Alison Mitchell and Marc Lacey, "DeLay Inc.. -- A special report: A Lawmaker Amasses Power, and Uses It. A CLOSER LOOK: DeLay's Fund-Raising Vehicles," New York Times, October 26, 1999.
Roberty Dreyfuss, "DeLay, Incorporated," The Texas Observer, February 4, 2000.
Ellen Miller, "Auditing DeLay," TPM Cafe, August 15, 2005.
"Republicans return DeLay PAC donations," The Hill, November 26, 2005.
News Release: "CREW FEC Complaint Against Rep. DeLay PAC – ARMPAC – Results in $115,000 Fine. One of Largest Fines in FEC History," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 20, 2006.
Paul Kane, "DeLay's PAC closes shop," Capitol Briefing Blog/Washington Post, May 1, 2007.

Also see:

Categories: Corruption | Scandals

James Walter "Jim" Ellis, who runs Thomas D. DeLay's political action committee Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (ARMPAC), is one of the two political associates who were indicted with DeLay on September 28, 2005, in "an alleged scheme to use corporate political donations illegally to support candidates in state elections." [[1]](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_go_co/delay_blunt_ellis;_ylt=AkmO_MH81eYIdPVQQnsrfYCs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM- "http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_go_co/delay_blunt_ellis;_ylt=AkmO_MH81eYIdPVQQnsrfYCs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-")

Indictments and More Indictments

Ellis and John Colyandro, who "also faces 13 counts of unlawful acceptance of a corporate political contribution," "already faced charges of money laundering in the case." They were indicted September 13, 2005, "on additional felony charges of violating Texas election law and criminal conspiracy to violate election law for their role in the 2002 legislative races." [2]

"The money laundering charges stem from $190,000 in corporate funds that were sent" to the Republican National Committee, "which then spent the same amount on seven candidates for the Texas Legislature." [3]

Ellis-Blunt-DeLay

"... most people are unaware that Ellis has extensive ties to both Tom DeLay and Roy Blunt that go back at least to 1999." --Roy Temple, *Fired Up America*, August 15, 2005.

Contents[hide]

Blunt Defense

"On September 22, 2004, the day after Ellis was indicted by a Texas grand jury, Roy Blunt rushed onto CNN's 'Inside Politics' and defended Ellis. Blunt dismissed the indictiments as 'all politics' and then proceeded to attack the prosecutor in the case," Roy Temple wrote June 9, 2005.

Blunt "then describe[d] the DeLay fundraising tactics for which Ellis was indicted as 'reasonable by any standard that I know of in terms of how political fund-raising is done in the country today.'

"On March 8, 2005, Roll Call reported that in January 2004, Roy Blunt, through the political committee that Ellis formerly ran, contributed $10,000 to Ellis' legal defense fund," Temple wrote. "The contributions to Ellis' legal defense fund, are in addition to separate contributions Blunt has made directly to DeLay's legal defense fund."

Pay to Play

The Associated Press reported September 28, 2005, that Roy Blunt’s "federal PAC, Rely On Your Beliefs Fund, paidJim Ellis’s firm, the J W Ellis Company, $3,000 a month from May March 2003 to January 2005, and $4,000 a month from February 2005 to at least July 2005. The payment for June and July was made in August, the last month covered by disclosure reports. The payments were identified as political consulting and fundraising services. The total payment for those months was $88,000 $94,000." [4]

Blunt's political committee has paid fees since 2003 to "a consultant under indictment in Texas with DeLay, according to federal records," Larry Margasak wrote September 28, 2005.

Related SourceWatch Resources

External links

Bruce Rushton, "The Ethics Omission. Enforcers of Missouri's campaign-finance laws would rather hide than seek," River Front Times, October 1, 2001.
Roy Temple, "DeLay Gave Roy Blunt $150,000," Fired Up Missouri!, June 9, 2005.
"GOP operative should stand trial for money-laundering. Judge makes first ruling in corporate cash case," Austin American-Statesman, July 12, 2005.
"Judge Supports Charges Vs. DeLay Colleagues," Associated Press, August 10, 2005.
Roy Temple, "The Role of Jim Ellis," Fired Up America, August 15, 2005.
Patrick O'Connor, "With ethics back in spotlight, Republicans are holding fundraiser for DeLay associate," The Hill, August 17, 2005.
"Grand jury indicts two DeLay associates," Associated Press (CNN), September 13, 2005.
Syvia Moreno, "3 DeLay Workers Indicted in Texas. Aides Charged in Fundraising Probe," Washington Post, September 22, 2005.
Larry Margasak, "Blunt Hired Consultant Who's Also Indicted," Associated Press (Yahoo! News), September 28, 2005.

Categories: Corruption | Scandals

mcc& D 2003: 104th congress (1994 gingrich?)House Comm on sci went after green regs: see Kraft 2000) delay and doolittle ~ cfc's, nviro res (esp gw and energy res) rohrbacker and rep robrty walker Penn p 361

redistricting upheld by scotus? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Texas_redistricting

The facts in the case were largely not in dispute. Mr. Delay funneled $190,000 in corporate contributions to Republicans in the state's 2002 legislative elections. The question for the jury was whether the money transfers constituted a crime, as the prosecution said, or just hardball politics, as Mr. Delay contended. In addition to the three-year prison sentence, the former congressman was also given five years in prison on the money laundering charge but allowed to choose 10 years of probation instead of more prison time.

After the midterm elections in 2010, Mr. Delay crowed to reporters over the heavy Republican gains in Texas, where he almost single-handedly redrew districts in 2003 to get more of his party members elected. He also acknowledged that the money-laundering charges he faced in state court had, in effect, ended his career, saying he had no ambition to run for office again.

Money-Laundering Trial

The money-laundering trial was a window on the bare-knuckle partisan politics of Texas, where a district attorney’s office controlled by Democrats managed to derail the political career of the Republican politician most responsible for ousting several powerful Democrats from Congress.

Many of the facts in the case were not in dispute. In 2002, Mr. DeLay formed a state political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, with the goal of winning a majority in the Texas House and electing its first Republican speaker since Reconstruction.

The committee quickly raised nearly $200,000 from corporate lobbyists, many of them in Washington. Corporate donations cannot be legally given to Texas candidates, so the Texas committee sent the money to the Republican National Committee, which in turn sent the money from a separate, noncorporate account to seven Republican candidates in Texas.

Terry Nelson, who was the director of political operations for the Republican National Committee in 2002, testified at Mr. Delay's trial in November 2010 that one of Mr. DeLay’s political associates, James Ellis, had asked him to do the money swap. He said the national committee often performed the same maneuver for state party committees, but not for political action committees. He said Mr. Ellis had told him the request came from Mr. DeLay himself.

But Mr. DeLay’s lawyers argued that the transaction, while admittedly an end run around the state ban, did not break the state money-laundering law. The corporate money, they pointed out, remained in a separate account, and the noncorporate account had more than enough in contributions from individuals to cover the money sent to the Texas candidates. “It’s different money,” the lead defense attorney, Dick DeGuerin, has argued at several points.

Prosecutors argued that this distinction makes no difference if they can prove that Mr. DeLay and his two political associates, Mr. Ellis and John Colyandro, conspired to circumvent the state ban on corporate money in elections.

Jurors took 19 hours to come back with guilty verdicts on two money-laundering counts. Mr. DeLay could have been sentenced to life in prison on the charge. In January 2011, he was sentenced to three years on the conspiracy charge. The judge, Pat Priest, also sentenced him to five years in prison on the money laundering charge, but allowed Mr. DeLay to choose 10 years of probation instead of more prison time.

Mr. DeLay was expected to appeal.

Abramoff Scandal

The Abramoff scandal, which helped Democrats win majorities in Congress in the 2006 election, led to convictions or guilty pleas by two of Mr. DeLay's former aides; former Representative Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio; two former White House officials; Mr. Abramoff himself; and several other former Congressional aides and lobbyists. Mr. Abramoff was released from prison in June 2010.

The investigation involved a sprawling series of accusations that officials accepted gifts, trips and campaign donations while doing favors for Mr. Abramoff's clients, which included gambling interests like Indian tribal and online casinos and the Northern Mariana Islands, a United States commonwealth that was seeking to preserve its exemption from a minimum wage.

Mr. DeLay took several trips arranged by Mr. Abramoff, who also helped raise money for his political campaigns and a charity Mr. DeLay runs for foster children. A firm with financial ties to Mr. Abramoff established a retirement account for Mr. DeLay's wife, and she and their daughter also received payments for consulting work on Mr. Delay's campaigns.

...

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/tom_delay/index.html

rfk2

1/95 TD invites 350 lobbyists to dismantle regs 30 learned from watt disaster PR,

so plant tree foto op and used free mkt rhet to hide; Luntz did PR (wrote Cont for

Am) snuck riders on key bills, "supermandate" regulatory reform, ~ unfunded

mandates etc but PIRG etc caught them, 1 mil signatures, so mod gop opposed; after

gov't shutdown newt lost public support. TD: we lost debate on envir"

McC R: delay tried to repeal CFC legistlationafter newt revo 361

rfk jr Tom DeLay is a former Houston bug killer who entered politics because he was angry that his extermination business had been impacted by the ban on DDT and other pesticides, and he’s out to destroy America’s environmental laws.

franken: schiavo a gift, said she talks, frist looked at video excepts and was fooled

krugman says delay; promotes biblical world view,

creation in school (evol sch -->

Columbine), went aftr BC 7

Going back to those tea parties, Mr. DeLay, a fierce opponent of the theory of evolution — he famously suggested that the teaching of evolution led to the Columbine school massacre — also foreshadowed the denunciations of evolution that have emerged at some of the parties.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/12/delayf

Mike Scanlon, the 33-year-old former press aide who helped coordinate DeLay's impeachment of President Clinton in 1998, had pocketed a $30 million cut of the fees paid by the Indian tribes. Abramoff

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/blumenthal/2006/01/19/abramoff

kick him when down

"God bless you Tony Rudy — Are we the only ones with political instincts — This whole thing about not kicking someone when they are down is BS — Not only do you kick him — you kick him until he passes out — then beat him over the head with a baseball bat — then roll him up in an old rug — and throw him off a cliff into the pound surf below!!!!!" �

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/baker-breach.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay

Much of the funding McDonald turned up was from DeLay's regular funders like Philip Morris and Bacardi. There were also contributions from corporations that had no business dealings in Texas yet were suddenly making campaign contributions there. The Washington-based Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care contributed $100,000.

Questerra Corp., a Virginia energy company, contributed $50,000. One widely reported contribution was from Westar, a Kansas utility that has no ostensible connection to Texas. When a Westar executive asked in an internal e-mail about the $25,000 donation to DeLay's Texas PAC, a colleague told him it was to "get a seat at the table" in Washington and ensure that a deregulation provision was inserted in a key piece of legislation. Even the Mississippi Choctaw Indian tribe kicked in $6,000. The tribe does no business in Texas, but its Washington lobbyist was none other than the ubiquitous Jack Abramoff.

DeLay political operative Jim Ellis told the Texas Observer that there is a simple explanation for the two sets of books. TRMPAC raised "hard money" from individuals and spent it on election campaigns, which no one charges is illegal. But TRMPAC had another account that included "soft money" raised from corporate donors. Those funds were reported to the IRS, not to the Texas Ethics Commission, and were spent on administrative expenses rather than direct contributions to political campaigns.

born April 8, 1947 in Laredo, Texas) is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives who represented Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1984 until 2006. He was Republican Party (GOP) House Majority Leader from 2003–2005, when his legal problems forced him to step down. In 2005, a Texas court charged DeLay with criminal violations of state campaign finance laws and money laundering. DeLay pled not guilty, claiming political motivation for the charges. As of January 2010, the prosecutor has yet to bring the case before a jury. Two former senior aides to DeLay have been convicted in the Jack Abramoff scandal, and though the infamous lobbyist was closely associated with DeLay, the former congressman himself has not been legally implicated.

Before entering politics, DeLay worked in pest control, explaining one of his nicknames, "The Exterminator." He began his long and successful career as a politician in 1978 when he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives. Until 1985, when DeLay became a born-again Christian and changed his lifestyle, another of his nicknames was "Hot Tub Tom" because of his drinking and partying. In 1988, after just a few years in the U.S. House, DeLay was appointed Deputy Minority Whip. In 1994 he helped Newt Gingrich effect the Republican Revolution, which gave the Republicans the victory in the 1994 midterm election and swept Democrats from power in both houses of Congress, putting Republicans in control of the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. In 1995, he was elected House Majority Whip.

With the Republicans in control of both chambers in Congress, DeLay, along with Gingrich and conservative activist Grover Norquist, helped start the K Street Project, an effort to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire only Republicans in top positions, and to reward loyal GOP lobbyists with access to influential officials. DeLay was elected House Majority Leader after the 2002 midterm elections, earning his most famous nickname, "The Hammer," for his enforcement of party discipline and retribution against those who did not support the legislative agenda of President George W. Bush. On policy issues, not just political strategy and tactics, DeLay was known as one of Capitol Hill's fiercest, staunchest conservatives during his years in Congress, earning very high marks from conservative interest groups (e.g., business, gun rights, pro-life) and very low marks from liberal ones (e.g., civil liberties, labor unions, environmental protection).

Since leaving Congress, along with tending to his legal troubles, DeLay has co-authored (with Stephen Mansfield) a political memoir, *No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight*, founded a strategic conservative political consulting firm, First Principles, LLC, and competed on the ninth season of *Dancing with the Stars*,...

After graduating from college, DeLay spent three years at pesticide-maker Redwood Chemical^{^{^1}}^ and then purchased Albo Pest Control which DeLay grew into a large and successful business. This work was the source for his nickname, "the Exterminator." In the eleven years DeLay ran the company, the Internal Revenue Service imposed three tax liens on him for failure to pay payroll and income taxes.^{^{^4}}^ The United States Environmental Protection Agency's ban on a pesticide that was used in extermination work led DeLay to oppose government regulation of businesses, a belief that he has carried with him throughout his political career.^{^{^8}}^

^...^

Controversies

[edit] Grand Jury Indictment for Conspiracy Charge

On Oct. 3, 2005, a Grand Jury indicted Tom Delay on a felony conspiracy charge to move $190,000 in corporate donations to Republican candidates in the State Legislature in 2002.^{^{^23}}^ On Oct. 20th 2005, Tom Delay turned himself in to the Harris County Sheriff Office, one day after an arrest warrant was issued.^{^{^23}}^ Tom Delay was released after posting a $10,000 bond.^{^{^24}}^

[edit] Contributions from Russian oil executives

In December 2005, the Washington Post reported that, in 1998, a group of Russian oil executives had given money to a nonprofit advocacy group run by a former DeLay staffer and funded by clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in an attempt to influence DeLay's vote on an International Monetary Fund bailout of the Russian economy.^{^{^25}}^ Associates of DeLay advisor Ed Buckham, the founder of the U.S. Family Network, said that executives from the oil firm Naftasib had offered a donation of $1,000,000 to be delivered to a Washington, D.C.-area airport in order to secure DeLay's support. On June 25, 1998, the U.S. Family Network received a $1 million check via money transferred through the London law firm James & Sarch Co. This payment was the largest single entry on U.S. Family Network's donor list. The original source of the donation was not recorded.^{^{^26}}^ DeLay denied that the payment had influenced his vote. Naftasib denied that it had made the payment and that it had ever been represented by James & Sarch Co. The now-dissolved law firm's former partners declined to comment due to confidentiality requirements.

[edit] The K Street Project

Jack Abramoff scandal

There are unsubstantiated rumors that DeLay may be one of the targets of the Justice Department investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's actions.^[citation ^needed] Abramoff allegedly provided DeLay with trips, gifts, and political donations in exchange for favors to Abramoff's lobbying clients, which included the government of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Internet gambling services, and several Native American tribes.^{^{^37}}^ Two of DeLay's former political aides, Tony Rudy and Michael Scanlon, as well as Abramoff himself, pleaded guilty in 2006 to charges relating to the investigation. Political columnist Robert Novak reported that Abramoff "has no derogatory information about former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and is not implicating him as part of his plea bargain with federal prosecutors."^{^{^38}}^

According to ABC's *20/20* television program, Abramoff lobbied DeLay to stop legislation banning sex shops and sweatshops that forced employees to have abortions in the Northern Mariana Islands when Abramoff accompanied DeLay on a 1997 trip to the U.S. commonwealth. While on the trip, DeLay promised not to put the bill on the legislative calendar.^{^{^39}}^

In 2000, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a worker reform bill to extend the protection of U.S. labor and minimum-wage laws to the workers in the Northern Mariana Islands. DeLay, then the House Republican Whip, stopped the House from considering the bill.^{^{^40}}^ DeLay later blocked a fact-finding mission planned by Rep. Peter Hoekstra by threatening him with the loss of his subcommittee chairmanship.^{^{^39}}^

DeLay received gifts from Abramoff, including paid golfing holidays to Scotland, concert tickets, and the use of Abramoff's private skyboxes for fundraisers. In May 2000, ARMPAC received the free use of one of Abramoff's private skyboxes to host a political fundraiser. At the time, campaign finance laws did not require the use of the skybox, valued at several thousand dollars, to be disclosed or for Abramoff to be reimbursed for its use.^{^{^41}}^

Later that month, the DeLays, Rudy, another aide, and Abramoff took a trip to London and Scotland. Abramoff paid for the airfare for the trip, and lobbyist Ed Buckham paid for expenses at a hotel at St. Andrews golf course in Scotland.^{^{^42}}^ Abramoff was reimbursed by The National Center for Public Policy Research, the nonprofit organization that arranged the trip. On the day that the trip began, The National Center received large donations from two of Abramoff's clients, internet lottery service eLottery, Inc., and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Both organizations denied that they had intended to pay for DeLay's trip.^{^{^43}}^ House rules forbid members to accept travel expenses from lobbyists, and require that members inquire into the sources of funds that nonprofits use to pay for trips. DeLay denied knowing that lobbyists had paid for travel expenses. In July 2000, DeLay voted against a bill that would have restricted Internet gambling. Both eLottery and the Choctaws opposed the bill.^{^{^43}}^ Rudy, who was then DeLay's deputy chief of staff, doomed the bill by engineering a parliamentary maneuver that required a two-thirds majority vote, rather than a simple majority, in order for the bill to pass. Rudy's actions on behalf of Abramoff's clients during this time were mentioned in Abramoff's guilty plea in January 2006.^{^{^44}}^

In January 2006, The Associated Press reported that in 2001, DeLay co-signed a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft calling for the closure of a casino owned by the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas. Two weeks earlier, the Choctaws had donated $1,000 to DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC). A DeLay spokesman denied that the donations had influenced DeLay's actions.^{^{^45}}^ Currently, and at the time of the letter, casinos or other private gambling establishments are illegal in Texas, even on Indian reservations.^{^{^46}}^

Scanlon, who became Abramoff's lobbying partner, pleaded guilty in November 2005 to conspiracy charges.^{^{^47}}^ Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy charges on January 3, 2006, and agreed to cooperate with the government's investigation. His cooperation may have forced DeLay to abandon his efforts to return to his position as House Majority Leader,^{^{^44}}^ a decision that DeLay announced only a few days after Abramoff's plea bargain. Rudy pleaded guilty on March 31, 2006, to illegally acting on Abramoff's behalf in exchange for gifts.^{^{^48}}^

Abramoff referred clients to Ed Buckham's Alexander Strategy Group (ASG), a lobbying firm. In addition, Abramoff clients gave more than $1.5 million to Buckham's U.S. Family Network, which then paid ASG more than $1 million.^{^{^49}}^

From 1998 to 2002, ASG paid Christine DeLay a monthly salary averaging between $3,200 and $3,400. DeLay's attorney, Richard Cullen, initially said the payments were for telephone calls she made periodically to the offices of certain members of Congress seeking the names of their favorite charities, and that she then forwarded that information to Buckham, along with some information about those charities. In early June 2006, Cullen said the payments were also for general political consulting she provided to her husband. In all, Christine DeLay was paid about $115,000 directly by ASG, and got another $25,000 via money put into a retirement account by the firm.^{^{^50}}^ Her work with ASG has been the subject of an inquiry by the Department of Justice.^{^{^37}}^{^51}^

On economic policy, DeLay is rated a 95 out of 100 by Americans for Tax Reform, the lobbying group founded by Grover Norquist, and 95 to 100 by the United States Chamber of Commerce, a business lobby. On environmental policy, he earned ratings of 0 from the Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters. He has been a fervent critic of the EPA, which he has called the "Gestapo of government."^[11] DeLay has also sided with business owners over labor unions and is for gun rights in the gun politics debate. The ACLU has measured that his voting history aligns with their civil liberties platform 2% of the time.^[12]

DeLay blames Senate Democrats and what he dubbed "BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) environmentalists" for blocking legislative solutions to problems such as the 2003 North America blackout.^[13]

In 2005, DeLay voted 100% in line with the views of the National Right-to-Life Committee and 0% with the National Abortion Reproductive Rights Action League.

DeLay supported the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. Critics of this law have argued that it unduly favors creditors over consumers, and have stated that the credit card industry spent millions of dollars lobbying in support of the act.

http://www.nndb.com/people/111/000026033/

Tom DeLay

Born: 8-Apr-1947

Birthplace: Laredo, TX

Gender: Male

Religion: Baptist

Race or Ethnicity: White

Sexual orientation: Straight

Occupation: Politician

Party Affiliation: Republican

Nationality: United States

Executive summary: Indicted ex-House Majority Leader

Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay was the pointman during the Clinton impeachment effort. Consistently DeLay argued that it wasn't about the sex -- it was about the President having lied under oath. And yet, during a February 1994 legal deposition, Tom Delay himself swore under oath that he was no longer an officer of his termite business, a claim he subsequently admitted he knew to be false.

| LAWYER: | Are you presently still an officer or director of [Albo Pest Control Company]? |

| --- | --- |

| DELAY: | I don't think so. No. |

| LAWYER: | All right. You're still an officer, are you not? |

| DELAY: | I don't think I am. |

| LAWYER: | Okay. Did you resign as an officer? |

| DELAY: | Not written. It was sort of an agreement. |

| LAWYER: | Okay. So you had an agreement with whom to resign verbally as an officer? |

| DELAY: | With Darrell Hutto, president of the company. |

| LAWYER: | And when was that? |

| DELAY: | I don't know. Two, three years ago. It wasn't anything formal. I haven't had much to do with the company since I got elected to Congress. |

| | [...] |

| LAWYER: | Suffice to say, sir, it's your testimony today that you from about two, three years ago had a verbal agreement with Mr. Hutto to resign as an officer or director of Albo Pest Control. Is that correct? |

| DELAY: | As far as I remember, yes. |

| LAWYER: | All right, sir. And that was never reduced to writing that you know of? |

| DELAY: | That I know of, no. |

Just three months after this deposition, DeLay submitted his annual financial disclosure form to Congress. And for the third year in a row, he identified himself in the paperwork as Albo's "chairman of the board." Asked about it later, DeLay's excuse was pathetic: "I did not have much to do with the company except for large, major decisions. I have to admit my service in the state legislature had a detrimental effect on my ability to run the company. I took too much time away." When pressed for an explanation of his apparent misstatements under oath, the politician offered another explanation: "I may have seemed evasive, but it's the truth. I didn't remember if I was president or chairman or secretary of the board. I didn't know which, and it was hard for me to answer. I had nothing to do with the company."

Later, DeLay raised eyebrows by comparing the Environmental Protection Agency to the Nazis:

A critical promise we made to the American people was to get government off their backs! And the EPA, the Gestapo of government, has pure and simply been one of the major clawholds the government has maintained on the backs of our constituents.

DeLay launched the Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee. ARMPAC's first fundraiser, held in Houston, garnered $280,000 -- at least $75,000 of which was donated by Enron officers Ken Lay and Joseph Sutton. All told, Enron eventually donated more than half a million dollars to ARMPAC.

And then there's the Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee, another DeLay fundraising outfit. DeLay was obsessed with the vision of wresting control of the Texas legislature and cementing it by redistricting the state. To further those goals, TRMPAC received at least $4.8 million in corporate donations in time for the 2002 election. Some of that money got laundered through the Republican National Committee, and returned to TRMPAC for disbursement to various Republican candidates for state office.

The main problem here is that it's a state felony for corporations to donate money for Texas political candidates. Add to this the fact that more than 75% of TRMPAC's money came from out-of-state companies having no business in Texas. Kansas-based Westar Energy donated $25,000 to TRMPAC in order to court DeLay. Furthermore, Texas law forbids political action committees from using corporate contributions for anything other than administrative expenses. Since it's hard to imagine TRMPAC having millions of dollars in administrative overhead, the group is currently under investigation for these and other alleged improprieties.

For reasons not made public, Tom DeLay cut off all contact with his mother and siblings following the 1988 death of his father.

Father: Charlie Ray DeLay (d. 1988)

Mother: Maxine DeLay

Brother: Ray

Brother: Randy

Sister: Tena DeLay Neislar

Wife: Christine Ann Furrh

Daughter: Danielle DeLay Ferro

High School: Calallen High School, Corpus Christi, TX (1965)

University: Baylor University (attended 1967)

University: BS Biology, University of Houston (1970)

US Congressman, Texas 22nd (3-Jan-1985 to 9-Jun-2006, resigned)

Texas State House of Representatives (1979-85)

American Conservative Union Board of Directors

American Legislative Exchange Council

Americans for a Republican Majority

Leadership Institute Bi-Partisan Congressional Advisory Board

Mandate to Save America

Rotary International

Susan B. Anthony List

Washington Legal Foundation National Board of Advisors

Draft Deferment: Vietnam

Issued Concealed Carry Permit

Campaign Finance Violation

Conspiracy (to violate campaign finance laws) indicted 28-Sep-2005

Conspiracy (to commit money laundering) indicted 3-Oct-2005

Money Laundering indicted 3-Oct-2005

Abramoff Scandal

Birther Movement

Risk Factors: Alcoholism, Smoking

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR

Casino Jack and the United States of Money (Jan-2010) Himself

Author of books:

No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight (2007, memoir, with Stephen Mansfield)

If I Had a Hammer

To understand how the Christian right worldview is shaping and even fueling congressional anti-environmentalism, consider two influential born-again lawmakers: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair James Inhofe (R-Okla.).

DeLay, who has considerable control over the agenda in the House, has called for "march[ing] forward with a Biblical worldview" in U.S. politics, reports Peter Perl in The Washington Post Magazine. DeLay wants to convert America into a "God centered" nation whose government promotes prayer, worship, and the teaching of Christian values.

Inhofe, the Senate's most outspoken environmental critic, is also unwavering in his wish to remake America as a Christian state. Speaking at the Christian Coalition's Road to Victory rally just before the GOP sweep of the 2002 midterm elections, he promised the faithful, "When we win this revolution in November, you'll be doing the Lord's work, and He will richly bless you for it!"

Neither DeLay nor Inhofe include environmental protection in "the Lord's work." Both have ranted against the EPA, calling it "the Gestapo." DeLay has fought to gut the Clean Air and Endangered Species acts. Last year, Inhofe invited a stacked-deck of fossil fuel-funded climate-change skeptics to testify at a Senate hearing that climaxed with him calling global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

DeLay has said bluntly that he intends to smite the "socialist" worldview of "secular humanists," whom, he argues, control the U.S. political system, media, public schools, and universities. He called the 2000 presidential election an apocalyptic "battle for souls," a fight to the death against the forces of liberalism, feminism, and environmentalism that are corrupting America. The utopian dreams of such movements are doomed, argues the majority leader, because they do not stem from God.

"DeLay is motivated more than anything by power," says Jan Reid, coauthor with Lou Dubose of *The Hammer*, a just-published biography of DeLay. "But he also believes in the power of the coming Millennium [of Jesus Christ], and it helps shape his vision on government and the world." This may explain why DeLay's Capitol office furnishings include a marble replica of the Ten Commandments and a wall poster that reads: "This Could Be The Day" -- meaning Judgment Day.

DeLay is also a self-declared member of the Christian Zionists, an End-Time faction numbering 20 million Americans. Christian Zionists believe that the 1948 creation of the state of Israel marked the first event in what author Hal Lindsey calls the "countdown to Armageddon" and they are committed to making that doomsday clock tick faster, speeding Christ's return.

With those words -- broadcast to 225 Christian TV and radio stations -- DeLay placed himself squarely inside the End-Time camp, a faction willing to force the Apocalypse upon the rest of the world. In part, DeLay may embrace Hagee and others like him in a calculated attempt to win fundamentalist votes -- but he was also raised a Southern Baptist, steeped in a literal interpretation of the Bible and End-Time dogma. Biographer Dubose says that the majority leader probably doesn't grasp the complexities of dispensationalist and reconstructionist theology, but "I am convinced that he believes [in] it." For DeLay, Dubose told me, "If John Hagee says it, then it is true."

said could not go to VN b/c blacks grabbed all the spots Big Lies 67

demanded jrnlist who write about gop sex scandals be charged with obstructing justice 117

Gt Unraverl

promotes a " biblical worldview" p 274

In 2002, DeLay visited pastor John Hagee's Cornerstone Church. Hagee preached a fiery message as simple as it was horrifying: "The war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse!" he said, urging his followers to support the war, perhaps in order to bring about the Second Coming. After Hagee finished, DeLay rose to second the motion. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "what has been spoken here tonight is the truth from God." [http://www.blog.joelx.com/pastor-john-hagee-cornerstone-church-ministry-heresy-divorce-dirty-deeds/910/ blog on hagee]

The details of DeLay’s perfidy do seem rather damning, and surprisingly straightforward. Texas campaign law prohibits donations made by corporations to individual political candidates. Earle alleges that DeLay and his colleagues—James W. Ellis, who heads Americans for a Republican Majority and John D. Colyandro, who heads Texans for a Republican Majority, which are DeLay’s national and state political committees, respectively—took corporate donations to Texans for a Republican Majority, and wrote a check from the group’s bank account to the Republican National State Elections Committee, a division of the Republican National Committee. The check went to an RNC employee named Terry Nelson, who James Ellis then contacted with a list of seven individual Republican candidates for state office in Texas, specifying how much of the check was meant to be dispersed to each of the seven. The Republican Committee thus became an extraordinarily simple money laundering entity: prohibited from writing checks directly to individual candidates, corporations in Texas wrote a check to DeLay’s political action committee and told them which candidate they wanted the money to go to. DeLay’s cronies took it from there, and figured that no one would ever detect their corrupt two-step.

The political strategy feloniously funded by DeLay was very successful. DeLay started up his committees about five years ago, and nearly single-handedly altered the face of Texas politics for time immemorial. He did this by not only helping—through illegal money-funneling—to elect scores of Republicans to the Texas legislature (17 Republican candidates who DeLay’s group gave money to won their elections), but also by, once these state legislators had taken control in 2003, helping them to redraw the congressional districts of Texas to make it almost impossible for Democrats to win any seats. In the first congressional elections in Texas after the redistricting, Republicans won five more seats than in the previous election.

So one can understand why Earle would feel a need to prosecute DeLay, even when his success and reputation as a Republican heavy-hitter at times makes him seem invulnerable. DeLay has certainly run into ethical problems before—he was officially reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee three times in the last year. But the well-oiled Republican machinery that DeLay helped build has swept in to cover up any mess every time. After the Ethics Committee criticized him, DeLay’s close partner Dennis Hastert forcibly changed the membership of the committee, removing all the legislators who voted to admonish DeLay.

Similarly, last year House Republicans anticipated that DeLay might face criminal indictment for his leadership in the money-laundering scheme, and purged the rule saying that party leaders had to step down from their leadership positions if indicted on felony charges. That move was seen as so blatant a protection of their corrupt leader that public outcry and criticism forced them to reinstate the rule, which resulted in DeLay’s temporary relinquishment of his duties as House Majority Leader upon announcement of the indictment obtained by Earle.

And finally, DeLay’s personal criticism of Earle is absolutely ludicrous. DeLay’s rigid authoritarian leadership is legendary—he was renowned for keeping a book recording donations to his and other Republican campaigns in the anteroom of his office, and if a lobbyist showed up from an organization not in the book, they were summarily shown out.

DeLay has also led an extremely successful reorganization of lobbyists on a national level, partnered with Rick Santorum in the Senate and Grover Norquist, a former politico who is now a top lobbyist. The three headed what Matthew Continetti, a writer for the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, called “the K Street Project” in the New York Times recently. Named after the street in Washington on which most of the large lobbying firms are located, the plan aimed to turn corporate America into a huge wallet sitting in the Republican Party’s pocket, and succeeded on an immense scale. The allegations of funneling corporate money into the individual campaigns of Texas politicians are directly consonant with a campaign to harness the bank accounts of corporate America that DeLay has been championing for the last decade.

Ronnie Earle, on the other hand, can fairly be called an idealist. His criticism of corporate corruption of politics is well-documented. But he is also an extremely even-handed prosecutor: since his election in 1976, of the now-16 politicians that have been indicted under his supervision, only four, counting DeLay, were Republicans. His unbiased examinations of corruption have even extended to himself—as detailed in a profile by the Washington Post this past weekend, after Earle realized that he had been one day late in filing a report detailing donations to his own campaign, he not only filed charges against himself, but requested that the judge fine him rather than excusing his extremely trivial misdeed.

http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/dara/ugly_by_a_frog_100305.htm

rawstory

===

http://www.salon.com/2004/03/13/delay_9/

salon

The weekly pen-and-pad press briefings in the office suite of the house majority leader are almost formal events. Thirty to 40 reporters take their seats at a long table and at a second tier of chairs placed against the east and west walls. “The leader” enters, escorted by two aides, Jonathan Grella and Stuart Roy. Roy closes the door at the south end of the elegant dining room and stands beside his boss, who sits at the head of the table; Grella takes his position at the opposite end of the room. Tom DeLay takes his seat, opens with a bit of friendly banter, and begins to work through his agenda. There’s so much decorum that DeLay’s arrival and departure are almost ceremonial. And there is never any doubt about who is in control. The 56-year-old congressman from Sugar Land, Texas, is smart, authoritative and in charge.

Recently the leader’s grip has begun to slip. The first press conference in February ended with a Fox TV news reporter pressing DeLay for answers about the ethics committee’s failure to investigate allegations of bribery on the House floor. DeLay didn’t respond. The last press conference in February ended with Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter Maria Recio asking about a campaign finance investigation in Texas. “That’s not on the agenda,” DeLay snapped.

Then he went on to answer the question with an unbidden attack on the “vindictive and partisan” district attorney in Austin.

The “vindictive and partisan” D.A. DeLay referred to is Ronnie Earle. For almost six months, Earle and a grand jury have been investigating possible violations of Texas campaign finance law in the 2002 election. Because the state capital lies within the jurisdiction of Travis County, Earle is far more powerful than the D.A.s in larger cities, such as Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. His Public Integrity Unit has a mandate and legislative funding to prosecute public officials who break the law. He’s held office for 27 years, and is the only Democrat with statewide prosecutorial authority. His ongoing investigation of two political action committees that spent a combined $3.4 million on 22 Republican Texas House races is now focused on a PAC founded by DeLay and directed by a DeLay operative. “This is an attempt to criminalize politics,” said a visibly angry DeLay. Ronnie Earle, he told reporters at his Feb. 24 press conference, is a “runaway prosecutor.”

Before Jon Grella could cut off questioning, DeLay was asked about two of his close associates billing Indian tribes a staggering $45 million in lobbying and consulting fees. DeLay said Jack Abramoff had never been on his staff. And he warned: “Anybody trading on my name to get clients or to make money, that is wrong and they [should] stop it immediately.” The warning was a little late. Mike Scanlon, the 33-year-old former press aide who helped coordinate DeLay’s impeachment of President Clinton in 1998, had pocketed a $30 million cut of the fees paid by the Indian tribes. Abramoff resigned from his lobbying position.Sen. John McCain subpoenaed Abramoff’s files. And the D.A. in Austin subpoenaed DeLay’s daughter in a separate investigation.

It will only get worse.

Now it appears that Abramoff and Scanlon are “off the reservation” for good. And DeLay can’t be much help to these associates facing a Senate inquiry. At the same time, the majority leader is confronted by grave problems in his home state. Just as he needs to distance himself from Abramoff — a close friend and longtime member of his “kitchen cabinet” — DeLay must to try to avoid the clutches of Ronnie Earle. The Travis County D.A., after all, can put him in a place and position he’d prefer to avoid: in an Austin courtroom under oath.

Prison is an unlikely fate for DeLay, though he is very close to the center of the investigation. It is equally unlikely for his daughter, Danielle Ferro. “She’s not responsible for the fact that she was paid with illegal money, assuming a court decides the money was illegal,” said an Austin attorney who asked to remain anonymous. But jail is not out of the question for DeLay’s operatives in Texas, who are looking at third-degree felony charges that carry a 10-year sentence.

According to courthouse sources in Austin, some witnesses will soon begin to roll in what is being compared to the Sharpstown scandal of the early ’70s: a banking stock scheme that sent the speaker of the house to jail, ended the career of the lieutenant governor, and fueled a reform movement aimed at curbing influence buying in the Legislature.

That’s not to say Texas is no longer the wild west of campaign finance.You can’t hand out checks on the Senate floor, as chicken tycoon Bo Pilgrim did in the late ’80s. (A senator who didn’t get a check said the $10,000 was a “poultry sum” he never would have accepted.) But when it comes to political contributions in the Great State, the only limit is the size of your bank account. Any citizen of the U.S. can give any amount to any elected official or candidate for public office. All you have to do is declare your contribution to the Texas Ethics Commission. Political action committees also are only restrained by the give-and-declare law.

There are two clear prohibitions: Corporate money and union money cannot be spent in election campaigns. The ban was passed into law in the early 1900s as a response to robber barons buying up railroads, timber, oil and legislators. A “speaker’s statute,” enacted after the Sharpstown scandal, prohibits a candidate for speaker of the house from handing checks to House members or candidates in exchange for support. It is these two state laws that have placed U.S. Majority Leader Tom DeLay and his handpicked speaker of the Texas House, Tom Craddick, under investigation by the Travis County Public Integrity Unit.

The back story is one of intrigue and power grabbing. Tom DeLay badly wanted to redraw the state’s congressional districts to add some half-dozen Republican representatives to the Texas U.S. House delegation. To do so he required a Republican majority in the Texas statehouse.

For four election cycles, Craddick had been expanding that majority. Working with an Austin political operative (one of 58 individuals subpoenaed in Austin), Craddick did it the old-fashioned way: establishing a PAC, raising huge amounts of money, and spending it where Democrats were vulnerable. He was racing against the calendar. Republicans controlled the Senate. But they needed a majority in the House by 2001, so they could redraw the state’s congressional districts after the 2000 census.

They fell a few seats short. And after the Democratic House and Republican Senate failed to reach an agreement on reapportionment in 2001, congressional district lines were redrawn by a panel of three federal judges. The Democrats had held the future at bay and it appeared that the Republicans would have to wait until the next census to redraw the lines. Or so the Democrats reasonably assumed, as reapportionment must be done in the first legislative session following the census. Republicans fell short, according to a party source quoted in the Texas Observer (which has extensively covered the story), because “the Hammer had too many balls in the air.”

The Hammer is Tom DeLay, who in 2001 stopped juggling and came home to Texas. DeLay and Jim Ellis, a political operative who had run DeLay’s Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), devised a scheme that would get DeLay the House seats he wanted in Washington by electing Republican legislators in Austin. First, they would use DeLay’s Washington contacts to raise the money to get Tom Craddick his Republican majority in Texas. Then, Craddick would deliver to DeLay an off-year redistricting plan that would add as many as seven Republican members to the Texas House delegation in Washington

They were spectacularly successful. They raised and spent $1.5 million. All but three of 21 new Republican legislators elected in 2002 were supported by Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC) — the PAC DeLay and Ellis created. And after he was elected speaker Craddick delivered a redistricting plan, despite Democratic state representatives and senators fleeing the state on two separate occasions to deny the Legislature a quorum. The entire deal was done in one election and three special sessions. It was a bold and brilliant case study of DeLay’s power.

But in their grab they failed to pay close attention to bookkeeping and Texas election law. One group did: Texans for Public Justice. The Austin campaign-finance advocacy group began comparing TRMPAC’s Texas Ethics Commission filings with its IRS filings. “We found approximately $600,000 in contributions on their IRS filings that weren’t filed in Texas,” said TPJ director Craig McDonald. “It wasn’t reported in Texas. It was off the books.” It was also PAC money raised from corporate sources — in almost all circumstances a violation of Texas campaign finance law. McDonald wrote a letter to the Travis County D.A., documenting what he had found and requesting a criminal investigation.

Much of the funding McDonald turned up was from DeLay’s regular funders like Philip Morris and Bacardi. There were also contributions from corporations that had no business dealings in Texas yet were suddenly making campaign contributions there. The Washington-based Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care contributed $100,000.

Questerra Corp., a Virginia energy company, contributed $50,000. One widely reported contribution was from Westar, a Kansas utility that has no ostensible connection to Texas. When a Westar executive asked in an internal e-mail about the $25,000 donation to DeLay’s Texas PAC, a colleague told him it was to “get a seat at the table” in Washington and ensure that a deregulation provision was inserted in a key piece of legislation. Even the Mississippi Choctaw Indian tribe kicked in $6,000. The tribe does no business in Texas, but its Washington lobbyist was none other than the ubiquitous Jack Abramoff.

DeLay political operative Jim Ellis told the Texas Observer that there is a simple explanation for the two sets of books. TRMPAC raised “hard money” from individuals and spent it on election campaigns, which no one charges is illegal. But TRMPAC had another account that included “soft money” raised from corporate donors. Those funds were reported to the IRS, not to the Texas Ethics Commission, and were spent on administrative expenses rather than direct contributions to political campaigns.

The Travis County D.A. might not buy the argument that that was legal. Texas election law “clearly defines administrative expenses as operating expenses incurred in the normal course of operation of any active organization, whether engaged in politics or not,” said an Austin lawyer who specializes in campaign finance. “The law is further defined by a half-dozen opinions from the Texas Ethics Commission.” DeLay’s PAC spent corporate funds on polling, voter identification, fundraising and candidate recruitment — hardly routine expenses that would be incurred even by businesses not involved in politics, as Texas law requires. That is, unless TRMPAC’s attorneys can convince a jury that Starbucks, say, does political polling, phone banking and candidate recruitment.

Even more explicit in Texas law is the prohibition of theuse of corporate money for political fundraising. TRMPAC paid John Colyandro, a former associate of George W. Bush political advisor Karl Rove, a year’s salary with corporate funds, said a campaign finance lawyer close to the case. Also, the Texas Observer reported that the Texas PAC spent $130,000 on fundraising.

“Ronnie has a very, very strong case,” said the campaign finance lawyer. The case seems to get stronger by the week, as reporters following civil suits filed by a former state representative defeated by TRMPAC turn up documents that suggest what the grand jury must be reviewing in its criminal inquiry.

On Sept. 10, 2002, TRMPAC donated $190,000 in corporate money, which could not be legally used in Texas elections, to the Republican National Committee. On Oct. 4, the RNC sent $190,000 that could legally be used in Texas to TRMPAC’s Jim Ellis, with instructions to distribute the money to seven candidates in Texas. If the case ever gets to court, jurors will be told that the check was left blank for Ellis to fill in, which doesn’t look good. Prosecutors will allege a classic soft-money-in/hard-money-out deal, though TRMPAC attorneys contend that the $190,000 up and $190,000 back was a coincidence.

In addition, documentation of 14 TRMPAC checks totaling $152,000 that Craddick personally distributed to 14 Republican candidates has surfaced in the civil case. An e-mail from Colyandro directed TRMPAC’s accountant to send the checks to Craddick. Craddick insists that the 14 candidates were already supporting him, so he was not cultivating their favor and therefore not violating the speaker’s statute. (He has retained an Austin attorney who specializes in defending elected officials facing public corruption charges.)

On March 3, Laylan Copelin, an Austin American-Statesman reporter, found another discrepancy certain to catch the attention of the district attorney: “The Republican Majority committee has said it didn’t report the $600,000 to state election authorities because it was spent on the committee’s administrative expenses … Yet the committee’s 2002 tax return lists $1.6 million — instead of the $900,000 — as ‘activities related to support for state Legislature and statewide offices in the state of Texas.’” The numbers don’t add up and lawyers and accountants for DeLay’s Texas PAC are going to have a hard time coming up with proof they had enough legal (hard dollars raised from individuals) money to cover all they spent on the 2002 Texas election.

All of this makes the notorious Sharpstown scandal look like a parochial pissing match in the political backwater Texas of 30 years ago. Tom DeLay is the majority leader of the U.S. House. He achieved that position by using his federal PAC to elect Republican representatives indebted to him because he provided the money that put them in office. He is grooming himself to replace Speaker of the House Denny Hastert. And the House is likely to remain in Republican (read: Tom DeLay’s) control for years.

The Travis County D.A.’s investigation represents the first time any of DeLay’s fundraising operations have been subjected to legal scrutiny. An impotent Federal Election Commission makes enforcement at the federal level improbable. Democrats filed a racketeering lawsuit against DeLay in 1998 and actually got it certified by the same district judge who presided over the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit in Washington. But they quickly folded and settled. Now, Texas D.A. Ronnie Earle, with subpoena power and a staff of investigators and lawyers, is doing what no one has thus far been able to accomplish. He is investigating the Texas franchise of what in Washington is referred to as DeLay Inc. — the largest funding combine ever controlled by a single member of Congress. (It raised $12.6 million from 2000-’02.)

Earle is in no hurry and is expected to turn the findings over to a second grand jury in April, when the term of grand jurors conducting the current investigation expires. A slow and methodical investigation, if the past month suggests what’s to come, cannot serve the interests of Tom DeLay.

Compounding the majority leader’s problems is Earle’s separate, or perhaps parallel, criminal investigation of the Texas Association of Business whose PAC spent $1.9 million along with the $1.5 million TRMPAC spent on the 2002 election. There are also two civil suits filed by former Democratic legislators who have presented strong arguments that the Texas Association of Business and TRMPAC violated Texas election law. Legal pleadings, depositions and documents obtained in the pretrial discovery process for the civil suits, unlike grand jury proceedings, are public record unless sealed.

How did a bunch of supposedly shrewd political operatives make so many mistakes in one election campaign? In their arrogance they assumed no one would hold them accountable. The Texas attorney general is a former Karl Rove client, who has shown little interest in suing Republicans. The Legislature is firmly in control of the Republicans and unlikely to hold hearings on compliance with campaign finance law. And the only public statement Republican Gov. Rick Perry has made is a demand that “the appropriate authority” begin an investigation — of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

Earle is the one variable the wiseguys from TRMPAC failed to include in their equation. His Public Integrity Unit is funded by the Legislature and mandated to prosecute public corruption. But he has done little with that mandate since his 1994 prosecution of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison — for official misconduct and records tampering — fell apart in the courtroom when Earle declined to go forward with the case.

Now Earle is 62, nearing the end of his career, and faces no opponent in November. TRMPAC has presented him with a case he believes he cannot ignore. “He’s really incensed about this stuff,” said Joe Crews, an Austin attorney representing a former state legislator suing ARMPAC. “He really believes that this is where you have to draw the line in a democracy, if we are going to have a democratic process.”

According to sources close to the case there is little doubt that indictments will be handed down. At the center of the investigation is John Colyandro, who showed up at a deposition for the civil suit with his criminal defense lawyer. Colyandro has reportedly been given limited immunity. Jim Ellis, who ran DeLay’s Washington PAC and is hardly naive about campaign finance law, is dangerously close to the center of the inquiry. He directed TRMPAC and called most of the shots, and e-mails turned up in the civil suit connect him to the $190,000 TRMPAC sent to Washington. Bill Ceverha, Tom DeLay’s roommate in “Macho Manor,” a legendary 1980s legislators’ party house, was the PAC treasurer and should have been aware of how money was raised and spent. Two Republican state reps served on the TRMPAC board and raised campaign money.

The majority leader himself may have enough of what Richard Nixon liked to call “plausible deniability” to avoid indictment. But he cannot claim he knew nothing, or even little, of what his PAC was doing in Texas. There are too many documents, e-mails and phone logs. Too many people are talking under oath, when the threat of going to jail for perjury encourages them to tell the truth. A Colyandro deposition in the civil suit already places DeLay squarely in the PAC’s decision-making process: in conference calls and major decisions TRMPAC made. It’s also part of the public record that DeLay was one of the founders of the PAC and served on its board.

Besieged by lawyers and investigators, Texas Republicans seem to be shifting from a litigation strategy to a legislative strategy. The state Republican Party is circulating a petition calling on the Legislature to shut down the Travis County D.A.’s Public Integrity Unit. A source close to the investigation says that the D.A. has been warned that the governor might take up the issue of funding in a special session. Should that occur, Earle will stand on his constitutional authority. The Legislature can take away his funding, but it cannot eliminate his authority to investigate and prosecute public corruption.

The district attorney will soldier on, even if his funding and staff are eliminated. Editorial boards from the state’s major daily newspapers are supporting his efforts. He seems confident that he has both the law and the facts working for him. The threat to cut his funds won’t work. “He’ll go it alone, issuing grand jury subpoenas based on newspaper clips,” the source said. “Ronnie’s in this one for keeps and these guys are in deep shit.”

Lou Dubose is editor of the Washington Spectator, and author of "Boy Genius," a political biography of Karl Rove.