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The Travesty Increases

by John F. Tamburo, Editor in Chief, Publisher
Originally Posted: 10/17/2005 11:44:28 AM

Ronnie Earle’s office, the District Attorney of Travis County, TX,  has been attacking U.S. Representative Tom DeLay, House Majority Leader (on leave), with multiple indictments accusing him of first violating a Texas campaign finance law and then of "money laundering."  As more and more details of this ribald prosecutorial misconduct come out, it reveals, all the more, just how sickening and obviously political this course of action is.

"[H]ow did Earle get an indictment with no evidence?  They only have an uncorroborated hearsay that this list exists.  They typed up their own ’list’ to show the Grand Jury."

What happened on Friday October 14, 2005 is stunning.  The basis for the charges against DeLay allege that he ordered people who worked for the Political Action Committee he founded, TRMPAC, to send $190,000 of money donated by corporations to the Republican National Committee, along with a list of Texas Congressional candidates to whom the RNC should send money that totalled to an identical amount.  Here is one, of many, problems:  Ronnie Earle does not have the alleged list!  There are many, many other problems, but how did Earle get an indictment with no evidence?  They only have an uncorroborated hearsay that this list exists.  They typed up their own "list" to show the Grand Jury.  Is that evidence manufacturing?  Is it any wonder that Earle got rejected by an experienced Grand Jury, and then pressured them to suppress their "no bill" finding?  Is it any wonder that Earle then proceeded to go to a brand-new inexperienced Grand Jury to push through a "money laundering" indictment?

There are other issues.  The Texas state law that prohibits corporate donations to congressional campaigns, the law that DeLay and his allies are alleged to have violated, was not yet in force when the money was allegedly routed!  So there was no offense under the original indictment.  Tom DeLay’s attorneys immediately noticed it; I assume that they were actually present on the day that they taught law in Law School.  So Earle pressures one Grand Jury, including the use of tactics that clearly violate Texas Grand jury law (prosecutorial deliberating with the Grand Jury), and fails to get an indictment for "money laundering."  So DeLay goes to a second, inexperienced Grand Jury, pulls the same stunt and wriggles out the "money laundering" charges.  Tom DeLay’s lawyer has aggressively fought this, immediately filing a motion to set aside the indictment.

Both indictments should be dismissed with prejudice and the court’s apologies.  Ronnie Earle should be brought up on charges for misprison of a felony, and his bar license should be exposed to a disbarrment proceeding.  Why?  Well, he manipulated two Grand Juries.  He charged a man for an act that was not a crime at the time it was done.  He then trumped up a money laundering charge.  Money laundering is the act of masking an unlawful payment with transactional niceties that make it appear unlawful.  If a drug dealer wants to make his illegal gains look lawful, he will route them through a front company, such as a restaurant, making the restaurant appear to have large cash revenues.  He then pays taxes and derives his "lawful" income on the "revenues" that were laundered through the restaurant.  Have more questions?  Watch The Sopranos.

"Even if the RNC had a "sweetie" agreement with DeLay, and the money trail at the RNC shows that the TRMPAC money was not used to pay the Texas congressional candidates, there is no "laundering" because, at the time, it was not illegal for TRMPAC to give its corporate money directly to those candidates."

So how is a donation of corporate-sourced money from TRMPAC to the RNC, which was not unlawful at the time, and the RNC’s donation of a similar (not identical, check with Ronnie Earle’s trumped-up evidence) amount to some congressional candidates, money laundering?  Even if it were unlawful to donate the corporate money to the congressmen, it is not unlawful to donate that corporate money to the RNC.  Even if the RNC had a "sweetie" agreement with DeLay, and the money trail at the RNC shows that the TRMPAC money was not used to pay the Texas congressional candidates, there is no "laundering" because, at the time, it was not illegal for TRMPAC to give its corporate money directly to those candidates.  Therefore, there is no basis in law or fact to charge anyone with money laundering.

What makes this travesty even worse is the fact that Tom DeLay has not been shown to even know about the transaction, much less order it or tacitly approve it.  So why has DeLay been indicted?  It would be like indicting Mrs. Widow Orphan, a Wal-Mart stockholder, for immigration violations at some Wal-Mart store, or to use a closer analogy, indicting Sam Walton’s daughter, who is a major stockholder but has no day-to-day contact with the company, for the same.  Tom DeLay has been indicted in order to do whatever the Left can to sideline a political genius. 

"You see, unlike the Democrats, the GOP have an ethics rule that requires Congressional leaders to take leave or quit if indicted.  The use of a groundless indictment is a dirty trick to keep Tom DeLay from shepherding the conservatives in the Congress.  It is evil and sickening.  These indictments hammer the American way."

You see, unlike the Democrats, the GOP have an ethics rule that requires Congressional leaders to take leave or quit if indicted.  The use of a groundless indictment is a dirty trick to keep Tom DeLay from shepherding the conservatives in the Congress.  It is evil and sickening.  These indictments hammer the American way.  They seek to squelch the people in order to stomp on their ideological choices for the country.  Why?  Because they are not the ones the People chose.  It’s a stop-at-nothing Machiavellian ploy to gain power by any means necessary, the people and the Constitution be damned.

The Left sees the writing on the wall.  The media blew it by their doomspeak about Hurricane Katrina.  They lost in 2004, despite multiple phony stories designed to make our President look like a crook and a military deserter.  We gained in the House and Senate, notwithstanding a relentless campaign that tried to scare retirees, minorities and others into thinking that the only way to save themselves from ruin was to vote Democratic.  The Left cannot win without cheating!  And this Travis County Travesty is nothing less than the latest Leftist cheat.