Entry: Delay Thursday, November 18, 2004

To Review

Posted by jesselee
Thursday, November 18, 2004 at 9:45 AM

So it would seem, as Josh Marshall suggests, that the GOP truly is preparing to wage war against Texas DA Ronnie Earle when, as they apparently expect, his Grand Jury indicts Tom DeLay. Josh asks:

So DeLay is getting members of the Republican caucus to accuse Earle of being an unethical district attorney and pursuing a prosecution to advance a political agenda.
Now, is there any evidence of that?

First thing to note, of course, is that it was a Grand Jury that indicted DeLay's deputies Ellis, Colyandro, and RoBold, and it would be a Grand Jury that would indict DeLay - Earle is merely presenting the case. But Josh's inbox is likely being filled right now by Republicans frantically emailing this statement from Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas:

I know he prosecutes for political purposes. He did it to me. And I think it is a very dangerous thing to criminalize politics.

This will likely be the top GOP talking point. It is true that Earle lost that case, but obviously that in and of itself does not make it politically motivated, and to my knowledge no Republican has argued that they have evidence that it was. And in the absence of evidence, this key statistic is difficult to overcome:

''The only people I antagonize more than Republicans are Democrats,'' Mr. Earle said later. He said the record showed he had prosecuted 12 Democratic officials and 4 Republican officials, although for much of his time in office, he acknowledged, Republicans were on the outs. ''We prosecute abuses of power,'' he said, ''and you have to have power to abuse it.''

That stat, for the record, has been confirmed by press reports throughout this scandal. But to find out whether this case against TRMPAC has merit or is politically motivated, how about we just look at the evidence?

The starting point for looking at this case is the law itself, 100 years old now, that specifically bans corporate and union fundraising except for purposes of "administrative overhead." That the Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), which was founded by DeLay, raised corporate money is not in question - $600,000 to be fairly precise.

The GOP legal defense has been that the exception for "administrative overhead" is vague enough that virtually anything can fall under that category. Michael King of the Austin Chronicle addressed that defense this way:

There's been loud pettifoggery from the usual brace of lawyers - unfortunately echoed by some news outlets - that Texas campaign finance law is "vague." But on this score, it has been plain enough for a century that the brazen defiance by the GOP is essentially unprecedented. Commented Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice, which filed the original complaint that eventually led to the TRMPAC indictments, "It's about as plain as the law that says you can't steal another man's horse."

But judge for yourself whether these activities sound like overhead:

State law generally prohibits corporate money from being spent on campaigns except for a political committee's administrative overhead such as rent and utilities. Texans for a Republican Majority spent corporate money on pollsters, phone banks and consultants, arguing that the expenses were part of the committee's overhead.

Still not convinced? Then let's go to the horse's mouth. This was a fundraising appeal TRMPAC sent out early on, which one might argue is the single most damning piece of evidence in the case:

"Unlike other organizations, your corporate contribution to TRMPAC will be put to productive use," the piece said. "Rather than just paying for overhead, your support will fund a series of productive and innovative activities designed to increase our level of engagement in the political arena." [emphasis added]

Ouch. So you see that the entire point of the PAC was to get around this law, but unfortunately that appeal completely dashed their sole defense. Now in the course of the 2002 campaigns for the Texas legislature, TRMPAC made several cutesy moves to try to dance around the law. For example:

A political committee connected to U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay sent $190,000 in what internal memos say were corporate donations to the Republican National Committee, which then doled out the same amount to seven candidates in Texas House races. It is illegal in Texas to use corporate money in political races, and some open-government advocates suggest the transaction smells of a money-laundering exercise.

Jim Ellis, a special favorite of Charles Kuffner's for authoring this despicable memo on the redistricting, wrote that check, and it should therefore be no surprise that he, along with John Colyandro, were indicted for money laundering.

All told, 32 indictments have been handed down so far, and obviously with good reason. The only question that remains is whether DeLay was personally involved. Of course as we noted, the entire purpose of the PAC, which again was founded by DeLay (whose specialty is corporate fundraising) was to get around or above these laws. But more importantly, there are at least three particularly potent pieces of evidence demonstrating his involvement.

Westar:

...in May 2002, an executive at Westar Energy discovered his company was about to make a political donation that, on its face, seemed rather odd. Westar Executive Vice President Douglas Lake didn?t understand why his Kansas-based energy company with no operations in Texas and no stake in the state?s elections would give $25,000 to a Texas congressman's PAC that operates solely in Texas campaigns.
"DeLay is from TX. What is our connection?" Lake emailed a colleague. Westar Vice President Douglas Lawrence responded that contributions to DeLay, Texas Republican Joe Barton, Billy Tauzin (R-La), and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) were necessary to get "a strong position at the table" during a House-Senate conference committee hammering out a federal energy bill...

Enron:

In May 2001, Enron's top lobbyists in Washington advised the company chairman that then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was pressing for a $100,000 contribution to his political action committee, in addition to the $250,000 the company had already pledged to the Republican Party that year.
DeLay requested that the new donation come from "a combination of corporate and personal money from Enron's executives," with the understanding that it would be partly spent on "the redistricting effort in Texas," said the e-mail to Kenneth L. Lay from lobbyists Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson.

The Tauzin Fundraiser:

A newly obtained memo indicates U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay had personal involvement in directing some of the fund-raising activities of a political action committee that is under a grand jury investigation.
[...]

The August 2002 e-mail by one of TRMPAC's paid fund-raisers stated that she was acting on DeLay's behalf in an attempt to set up an event featuring U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La.

The Westar case was, as we know, one of the incidents cited in DeLay's recent string of ethics admonishments.

So there you have it, the case against DeLay. Obviously nobody knows for sure whether DA Earle will see fit to indict DeLay, but it is difficult to see how his top three deputies in the effort deserve indictment and he does not. It is also difficult to see how any of the indictments are not justified. To be clear, if no convictions emerge, the 100-year-old law is dead, and may as well be taken off the books. Obviously, this would be very much to DeLay's liking.

So let us close by bringing this back to the change in party rules passed yesterday. The Chicago Tribune writes:

But it's hard to read much more than arrogance in what the GOP did Wednesday. If DeLay is indicted, he should step down from party leadership immediately, at least until the charges are resolved. Allowing a high-profile leader such as DeLay to continue to serve as a spokesman for his party while he faces criminal charges would be crippling for the Republicans.
Republicans must know this stinks. They did it behind closed doors Wednesday and there was no vote count.

DeLay has responded to all this with his usual bluster. Maybe that works in Texas - though his relatively narrow re-election would argue that even Texans are growing weary of him. DeLay can bluster, but the Republican Party has to show that it understands political leaders have to set a high ethical standard. Their actions on Wednesday suggest they want to protect DeLay at any cost - even the cost of the party's reputation.