House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted yesterday on felony conspiracy charges stemming from a Texas (good ole boy) fundraising scam. In response to the indictment, DeLay issued the following politically correct statement:
I have notified the Speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County District Attorney today.
But he left it to his political spokesman Kevin Madden to convey how he really feels about these charges:
These charges have no basis in the facts or the law. This is just another example of Ronnie Earle misusing his office for partisan vendettas. Despite the clearly political agenda of this prosecutor, Congressman DeLay has cooperated with officials throughout the entire process. Even in the last two weeks, Ronnie Earle himself had acknowledged publicly that Mr. DeLay was not a target of his investigation. However, as with many of Ronnie Earle’s previous partisan investigations, Ronnie Earle refused to let the facts or the law get in the way of his partisan desire to indict a political foe.
This indictment is nothing more than prosecutorial retribution by a partisan Democrat.
Of course, what else would one expect DeLay’s spin doctor to say to treat his political flu? Except in this case, there’s probably more truth to this statement than one might think. After all, a criminal indictment for campaign fundraising shenanigans is rather like being criminally indicted for jaywalking. But, as the statement suggests, Texas District Attorney (DA) Ronnie Earle is using state law to make a federal case against DeLay. And, no one in his right mind should try to make sense of the dirty state politics that led to this indictment.
Tom DeLay trying to control either his anger or tears (or both) as he met the press to announce his resignation after being indicted on criminal conspiracy charges
Suffice it to say, however, that neither Democrats nor Republicans would survive federal enquiries into their campaign finances based of this Texas (DA Earle) standard. Indeed, many people still wonder how Bill Clinton was able to get away with having foreign Chinese fund his reelection campaign in 1996. And, speaking of Texas, they wonder what campaign fundraising schemes George Bush’s “pioneers” concocted to get him elected president in 2000. But what Clinton and Bush had going for them were Federal Election Campaign laws that are nothing more than a set of codified rules that allow members of both political parties (who are running for president or Congress) to do whatever is necessary to get elected – without fear of prosecution.
In DeLay’s case, however, he’s being hoisted on his own petard for allegedly transgressing state laws where détente between political parties – based on this notion of mutual assured destruction if campaign laws were enforced – evidently does not exist. Moreover, it is widely known that DeLay has made many enemies in Washington by hammering Democrats (and unruly Republicans) to push a conservative agenda in Congress. Less known, however, is the fact that he has made just as many enemies back home by hammering local politicians to ensure that as many of his Republican friends were elected to the Texas Congressional delegation to help reinforce his power in Washington.
Ultimately, though, the merits of the case against him are irrelevant. Because, as President Clinton’s advisor and close personal friend Vince Foster wrote in his infamous suicide note, “here [in Washington] ruining people’s life is considered sport.” And no one has played this sport better than DeLay. Unfortunately, he did not count on skeletons in his closet down in Texas coming out to ruin his political life up in Washington. Oh, and trust me, almost as many Republicans as Democrats are struggling to constrain bipartisan schadenfreude today at DeLay’s comeuppance – no matter what they say on TV.
Game, set…Mr Earle!
Note: It’s axiomatic in legal circles that a DA can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Therefore, it is instructive (and possibly, in itself, an indictment) that DA Earle had to run through 6 grand juries to finally win this indictment against DeLay.
News and Politics
Anonymous says
delay is a political hack.