DeLay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe
A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader. DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee. ... A state political action committee he created, Texans for a Republican Majority, was indicted earlier this month on charges of accepting corporate contributions for use in state legislative races. Texas law prohibits corporate money from being used to advocate the election or defeat of candidates; it is allowed only for administrative expenses. With GOP control of the Texas legislature, DeLay then engineered a redistricting plan that enabled the GOP take six Texas seats in the U.S. House away from Democrats — including one lawmaker switching parties — in 2004 and build its majority in Congress.Yeah, yeah, "a good prosecutor can convince a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich." It still shows there's some things The Exterminator can't bully and buy his way out of. Courage, mes amis!
As Johnny Wendell pointed out, David Dreier is notoriously gay.
ReplyDeleteThink sharks.
Think blood.
Think huge gnashing teeth.
Johnny Wendell also points out (unverified, but plausible) blog comment:
ReplyDeleteThe biggest fish hauled off to jail from DeLay's mammoth crime organization so far was Jack Abramoff, DeLay's consiglieri. Abramoff will face a myriad of changes involving corruption and various degrees of financial manipulations. And possibly murder. Tuesday Fort Lauderdale police charged 3 hitmen in the 2001 gangland-style murder of Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, a Florida businessman who was gunned down in his car months after selling a casino cruise line to Abramoff, his crooked partner Adam Kidan and some other shady Abramoff/DeLay "associates." ... Abramoff and Kidan had bought the cruise line from Boulis in 2000... Fellow Republican legislator, John McCain was so shocked by Abramoff's wheeling and dealing on behalf of DeLay that he was moved to comment: "Even in this town, where huge sums are routinely paid as the price of political access, the figures are astonishing."
Both DeLay and Ney were involved with Kidan and Abramoff's cruise line deal, Ney even placing comments in the Congressional Record about
Josh Marshall's been all over the Boulis murder -- and specifically, DeLay's attempts to pretend that he broke with Abramoff about Boulis was killed. As Marshall notes this week (and has noted in the past), DeLay was hanging out with Abramoff the Bagman long after Boulis was whacked.
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