On Wednesday, a Travis County, Texas, grand jury transformed national power-politics in
Washington, handing down an indictment of the powerful House
majority leader, Tom DeLay (R-TX). DeLay, 58, was forced to resign his
majority leader position, the second most powerful in the House, after he
was indicted on one count of criminal conspiracy. The case alleges that
DeLay and two political associates laundered corporate contributions to a
now defunct Texas political action committee they formed, Texans for a
Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), to benefit Texas GOP candidates, in
violation of state campaign finance laws.
A press release from the Travis County District Attorney’s office summarized
the
charge against DeLay as follows:
The indictment charges DeLay with conspiring with [James] Ellis and [John]
Colyandro to violate the Texas Election Code by contributing corporate money
to certain candidates for the Texas Legislature. It describes a scheme
whereby corporate, or “soft” money, was sent to the Republican National
Committee where it was exchanged for “hard” money, or money raised from
individuals, and sent to those candidates. Criminal conspiracy is a State
Jail Felony punishable by six months to two years in a State Jail and a fine
of up to $10,000.
Specifically, D.A. Ronnie Earle has accused TRMPAC of
receiving $190,000 in corporate donations, sending the money to an arm of the Republican National Committee for the express purpose of having it
sent back in the form of campaign contributions to seven Texas GOP
candidates running in the 2002 state elections. “The corporate
fundraising,” CBS reported earlier this year, based on an interview with Earle, “was
done to elect Republicans to the Texas legislature so they could redistrict
the state and ensure that more Republicans would be elected to the house in
Washington.”
DeLay’s ethical troubles are legendary—as is his prowess at
throwing a wrench into the institutions that could hold him accountable.
According to Common
Cause, DeLay was admonished by unanimous votes of the House Ethics Committee a record four
times, for matters concerning DeLay’s role in threatening an electronics trade group for not putting a Republican at its head, for “creating at least the ‘appearance’ that Westar Energy executives were provided special access
at a West Virginia golf retreat as a result of $25,000 in corporate
contributions to Texans for a Republican Majority,” “for using government
resources in a 2004 Texas redistricting undertaking,” and “for offering to
endorse Rep. Nick Smith’s (R-MI) son . . . on the House floor in exchange for
Smith’s vote in favor of the Medicare/prescription drug bill.” In April, the
New York
Times reported that DeLay’s “wife and daughter . . . have been paid more
than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay’s political action and campaign
committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed
with the Federal Election Commission.”
Furthermore, in March, the Washington Post reported that, “The Senate Finance Committee yesterday
opened an investigation into allegations that lobbyist Jack Abramoff used
nonprofit organizations to pay for a variety of improper activities,
including overseas trips for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and
another Republican lawmaker.” A month later, the Post reported that a third DeLay trip, a “six day trip to Moscow in
1997 was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the
Russian government,” via GOP lobbyist and close DeLay associate Jack
Abramoff.
With such troubles mounting, last January, DeLay’s Republican supporters
engineered a rule change in the House ethics committee that would
automatically throw out ethics complaints when the committee was deadlocked.
“Democrats rebelled,” the Washington Post reported, “saying Republicans were trying to protect DeLay from further ethics investigations.” The rule change came on the heels
of a
purging of the House ethics committee of three members who had voted in
the past to admonish DeLay, including its chairman Rep.
Joel Hefley (R-CO).
True to his trademark aggressive style that has him nicknamed the
Hammer, DeLay, who has represented Texas’ 22nd district in Washington since 1984 and who has been a top fundraiser for the GOP, responded to
the charges with guns blazing against the Texas district attorney who
indicted him, Earle.
“This morning, in an act of blatant political partisanship, a rogue district
attorney in Travis County, Texas, named Ronnie Earle charged me with one
count of criminal conspiracy: a reckless charge wholly unsupported by the
facts,” DeLay said at a Wednesday afternoon press
conference. “This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in
American history. It’s a sham and Mr. Earle knows it.”
It’s worth remembering that DeLay led the charge for Bill Clinton to be impeached back in
1998.
Meeting in emergency session Wednesday afternoon, House Republicans voted unanimously to
elect Missouri Republican Roy Blunt
as their next majority leader, ABC news reported. But in an unusual
arrangement perhaps designed to keep the door open for DeLay to
eventually return, Blunt was to share majority leader duties with
California representative David Dreier
and Virginia Republican Congressman Eric
Cantor.
“It’s a mixed blessing for the Democrats,” Washington political analyst
Chris Nelson, author of the insider Nelson Report, tells the Voice. “DeLay
was such a controversial figure, that he served as a rallying point for the
Democrats. Obviously [House speaker Dennis] Hastert is scared to death. He’s
adopted to cut the baby in half” by having DeLay’s majority leader job split
between Blunt, Dreier, and Cantor.
Even before the DeLay indictment was handed down Wednesday, it’s been a tough few weeks for Republicans, with key members of its leadership and
network of fundraisers and lobbyists recently engulfed by allegations of
corruption:
On Tuesday, the FBI arrested three
suspects in the 2001 gangland-style murder of Gus Boulis, the estranged
former business partner of top GOP lobbyist and Bush fundraiser Jack
Abramoff, already indicted for wire transfer fraud by a Florida grand jury
in the case and the subject of multiple Washington corruption
investigations.
Last week, the FBI arrested the White House’s top procurement officer, David Safavian,
who was charged with obstruction of justice and allegedly lying to
investigators about Abramoff having business before Safavian’s Government
Services Agency when Safavian accepted a $100,000 Scotland golfing trip from
Abramoff. Also on the 2002 Scottish golfing trip?
Ohio Republican Congressman Bob Ney and former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed.
On Monday, Senate Majority Leader and rumored 2008 GOP presidential
candidate Bill Frist (R-Tenn) defended himself from recent revelations that he ordered sold his stock shares in his family’s
troubled HCA corporation in the weeks before those share prices plummeted—
stock which had supposedly been held in a blind trust in order to avoid
conflict of interest allegations.
With grand juries and Senate committees investigating everything from Jack Abramoff’s bilking of Indian tribes, to whether White House officials
conspired to out the identify of a CIA operative married to an Iraq war
critic to reporters, it promises to be a tumultuous political season for
DeLay and his Republican allies. Then again, it would be premature to count DeLay out. Political observers say even as he is forced to step down from the House majority leadership, DeLay will hardly be kept out of the loop by the likes of House speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), who owes
his position in large part to the patronage of the likes of DeLay. And even back in June before he was indicted, DeLay had already raised well over a
million dollars in contributions for his legal defense fund, including from
fellow congressmen. Stay tuned.