Fighting the Devil
Happy Friday.
Ronnie Earle is a prosecutor in Austin, Texas. For years, Earle was praised for his diligent, determined efforts to reduce crime, seek out justice (not just a conviction), and maintain the integrity of his office. That was, until he challenged the illegal practices of certain Texas politicians--and came up against Karl Rove.
More recently, Earle began investigating the illegal acts of Political Action Committees supporting House Majority Leader Tom Delay. He revealed a massive, unlawful conspiracy among the PACs to raise and spend funds in support of Republican candidates for state, and later national, office. (To be sure, of the public officials he's prosecuted, 12 have been Democrats, three of have been Republicans--so far.)
If you're wondering how November 2d could have happened, here's a clue. Surely, this illegality is not limited to Texas.
Who the Hell is Ronnie Earle?
Think your vote counts? Think again.
Ronnie Earle is a prosecutor in Austin, Texas. For years, Earle was praised for his diligent, determined efforts to reduce crime, seek out justice (not just a conviction), and maintain the integrity of his office. That was, until he challenged the illegal practices of certain Texas politicians--and came up against Karl Rove.
More recently, Earle began investigating the illegal acts of Political Action Committees supporting House Majority Leader Tom Delay. He revealed a massive, unlawful conspiracy among the PACs to raise and spend funds in support of Republican candidates for state, and later national, office. (To be sure, of the public officials he's prosecuted, 12 have been Democrats, three of have been Republicans--so far.)
If you're wondering how November 2d could have happened, here's a clue. Surely, this illegality is not limited to Texas.
Who the Hell is Ronnie Earle?
Think your vote counts? Think again.
posted by Happy Friday | 6:00 AM
3 Comments:
AUSTIN, Texas
A grand jury has indicted a political action committee formed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and a Texas business group in connection with 2002 legislative campaign contributions. The five felony indictments against the two groups were made public Thursday. Neither DeLay nor any individuals with the business group has been charged with any wrongdoing. The charge against Texans for a Republican Majority alleged the committee illegally accepted a political contribution of $100,000 from the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care. Four indictments against the Texas Association of Business include charges of unlawful political advertising, unlawful contributions to a political committee and unlawful expenditures such as those to a graphics company and political candidates.
Indicted DeLay Steps Down From House Post
By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer
Wed Sep 28, 7:30 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050928/ap_on_go_co/delay_investigation
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury Wednesday on a charge of conspiring to violate political fundraising laws, forcing him to temporarily step aside from his GOP post. He is the highest-ranking member of Congress to face criminal prosecution.
A defiant DeLay said he had done nothing wrong and denounced the Democratic prosecutor who pursued the case as a "partisan fanatic." He said, "This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. It's a sham."
Nonetheless, DeLay's temporary departure and the prospect of a criminal trial for one of the Republicans' most visible leaders reverberated throughout the GOP-run Congress, which was already struggling with ethics questions surrounding its Senate leader.
Republicans quickly moved to fill the void, while voicing polite support for DeLay. Speaker Dennis Hastert named Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record) to take over most of DeLay's leadership duties.
Ronnie Earle, the Democratic prosecutor in Austin who led the investigation, denied politics was involved. "Our job is to prosecute abuses of power and to bring those abuses to the public," he said. He has noted previously that he has prosecuted many Democrats in the past.
DeLay, 58, was indicted on a single felony count of conspiring with two political associates. The two previously had been charged with the same conspiracy count. They are John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.
The indictment stems from a plan DeLay helped set in motion in 2001 to help Republicans win control of the Texas House in the 2002 elections for the first time since Reconstruction.
The grand jury accused the men of conspiring to route corporate donations from DeLay's Texas committee to the Republican Party in Washington, then returning the money back to Texas legislative candidates. It was a scheme intended to evade a state law outlawing corporate donations going to candidates, the indictment said.
The indictment also mentioned another Republican figure, President Bush's campaign political director Terry Nelson, though it did not charge him with any wrongdoing.
The grand jury alleged Nelson received the money — along with a list of Texas lawmakers who were to get donations — from the Texas committee while working at the Republican National Committee. Nelson did not return calls to his office seeking comment.
DeLay and others conspired to "engage in conduct that would constitute the offense of knowingly making a political contribution in violation" of Texas law, the indictment charged. However, it did not specify how DeLay was involved.
DeLay, whose conduct on separate issues was criticized by the House ethics committee last year, was unrelenting in his criticism of Earle. He suggested the district attorney had promised not to prosecute him and then changed course under pressure from Democrats and criticism from a newspaper in Texas.
The majority leader derided Earle as an "unabashed partisan zealot" and a "rogue district attorney."
However, the grand jury's foreman, William Gibson, told The Associated Press that Earle didn't pressure members to indict DeLay. "Ronnie Earle didn't indict him. The grand jury indicted him," Gibson said in an interview at his home.
Gibson, 76, a retired sheriff's deputy, said of DeLay: "He's probably doing a good job. I don't have anything against him. Just something happened."
DeLay's lawyer immediately sought to protect the lesader from further embarassment, even as they pressed to learn the evidence against their client. "I'm going to keep from having Tom DeLay taken down in handcuffs, photographed and fingerprinted. That's uncalled for," defense attorney Dick DeGuerin said.
DeLay got some polite support from the White House, where press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush still considered DeLay "a good ally, a leader who we have worked closely with to get things done for the American people."
"I think the president's view is that we need to let the legal process work," the spokesman said.
By any measure, DeLay's indictment was historic. A Senate historian, Donald Ritchie, said after researching the subject, "There's never been a member of Congress in a leadership position who has been indicted."
Two others members of Congress have been indicted since 1996. Former Rep. William Janklow (news, bio, voting record), R-S.D., was convicted of vehicular homicide and sentenced to 100 days in prison after his car struck and killed a motorcyclist in 2003. Former Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio, was sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted on charges from a 2001 indictment accusing him of racketeering and accepting bribes.
Democrats, who have long accused DeLay of ethical impropriety, made much of the indictment, which came just days after federal authorities began a criminal inquiry into Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist over his sale of stock in a family-founded hospital company.
DeLay's indictment "is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, setting up Democrats' pitch to win back Congress in 2006.
Criminal conspiracy is a Texas felony punishable by six months to two years in a state jail and a fine of up to $10,000. The potential two-year sentence forced DeLay to step down under House Republican rules.
Texas law prohibits corporate money from being used to advocate the election or defeat of candidates; the money can be used only for administrative expenses.
The indictment alleged that the DeLay-founded Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee accepted $155,000 from companies, including Sears Roebuck, and placed the money in an account.
The PAC then wrote a $190,000 check from that same account to an arm of the Republican National Committee and provided the committee a document with the names of Texas State House candidates and the amounts they were supposed to receive in donations.
The indictment, which included a copy of the check, came on the final day of the grand jury's term, following earlier indictments of TRMPAC, three political associates — including the two indicted Wednesday — several corporate donors and a Texas business association.
___
Associated Press writers April Castro and Suzanne Gamboa in Austin and Special Correspondent David Espo in Washington contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
The indictment is available at http://wid.ap.org/documents/delayindict050928.pdf
Texas Prosecutor Cites New Input on DeLay; Earle Doesn't Respond to Lawmaker's Attack
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
The Texas prosecutor overseeing an investigation of former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) fired back yesterday at criticism by DeLay's lawyers that he brought a new indictment against the powerful legislator on Monday to fix a legal flaw in the first indictment of DeLay last week.
Travis Country District Attorney Ronnie Earle said in a written statement released late yesterday that the new indictment charging DeLay with the criminal felonies of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering was based on new information that "came to the attention of the District Attorney's Office" last weekend.
The statement did not elaborate on whether the new information consisted of testimony, documents or insight, explaining that "because of the laws protecting grand jury secrecy, no other comments can be made."
But the statement was Earle's most detailed account of why the money laundering charges leveled against DeLay on Monday by one grand jury were not issued earlier, during the three-month tenure of a different grand jury that on its final day, Sept. 28, issued a lesser charge of conspiracy to violate the Texas election laws.
The backdrop for both the new and the old indictments is a long-standing ban in Texas on corporate contributions, and the fact that some of these funds were collected in Texas and sent to an arm of the Republican National Committee in Washington. The RNC several weeks later sent checks for a commensurate amount to Texas Republican candidates on a list that Earle alleges was formulated by the conspirators.
The RNC says the checks sent to Texas were drawn on a different account than the one that received the money from Texas, making the transactions legal. But Earle claims the use of the two accounts was nothing more than an illegal dodge.
Dick DeGuerin, one of DeLay's attorneys, asserted on Monday that the new money laundering charge was brought this week because Earle realized that last week's conspiracy charge rested on an erroneous interpretation of the law. He said the crime of conspiracy was not covered by the state election law at the time of the alleged violation, in late 2002.
Responding to Earle's new statement, DeGuerin said, "That is just a confabulation. What information came over the weekend? What came over the weekend is that he heard we were going to move to quash the indictment because the statute had not been written yet in 2002."
Earle said in the statement that "issues have arisen regarding that [first] indictment that will be argued in court and resolved by a judge." He also disclosed that Monday's money laundering charge was initially brought before yet another grand jury without success last week.
This third grand jury "declined to indict on the last day of its regular term," Earle said. Then his office acquired "additional information" over the weekend and succeeded in getting the indictment on Monday. There is no law in Texas barring prosecutors from presenting a case to different grand juries, DeGuerin explained.
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