California Conservative

Do you want mayo with that ham sandwich?

Earlier, I reported that Tom DeLay was indicted yesterday on conspiring and money laundering charges. I just finished reading the New York Times’ article on the new charges. Here’s a couple of the most explosive outtakes:

The new indictment was brought on the first day of deliberations by a newly empanelled grand jury in Austin. The grand jury that brought the original conspiracy charges against Mr. DeLay and which had been investigating the lawmaker for months, was disbanded last week.

Without an explanation from the prosecutors, local criminal law specialists seemed perplexed by Mr. Earle’s actions, saying they may reflect an effort by the prosecutor to ensure that some charge sticks to Mr. DeLay even if the conspiracy indictment is dismissed.

George E. Dix, a law professor at the University of Texas & a specialist in criminal procedures, speculated that prosecutors “saw a potential problem” with the conspiracy counts “& didn’t want to hassle over it, so they went with a legal theory on money laundering that wouldn’t present the same problems.” He said if that was the case, it could be embarrassing to Mr. Earle because “it is a little awkward to have to change a theory before your horse is out of the gate.”

Professor Dix’ comments indicate that Mr. DeLay’s assertions about last week’s indictment were right on the money. To say that it would’ve been awkward “to have to change a theory before your horse is out of the gate…” is understatement.

TRANSLATION: “This case is so flimsy that it would’ve been obliterated in no time so he got another indictment to hide behind, at least for a little while.”

The essential allegations are identical in the new and old indictment, that Mr. DeLay and his aides transferred $190,000 in corporate donations from a Texas political action committee to the RNC in September 2002, and that it was returned to individual Republican candidates for the Texas state house. A century-old ban in Texas prohibits the use of corporate money in the campaigns of state candidates.

Let’s follow this logically. TRMPAC sent a $190,000 check to the RNC, which could be used for paying salaries of office workers, paying the rent on the building & which could also be used in some states where soft money could be used in specific races. At roughly the same time, money was sent by the RNC from their hard money account with the express purpose of defeating Democrats. (It’s shocking to think that Republicans would use hard money to defeat Democrats, isn’t it?)

Also factor in that the money sent from the RNC isn’t the same amount as the money sent to the RNC and it sounds like these were separate & legal transactions. In fact, both political parties make these types of transactions on an almost daily basis down the stretch.

Within hours, Mr. Earle responded with the new money-laundering indictment, brought before a grand jury that was in its first hours of operation. Mr. DeGuerin said in a telephone interview that the new grand jury couldn’t have understood what it was approving: “These are 12 people who are newly sworn in, and just getting them oriented takes them all day.”

This is definitive proof that you can indict a ham sandwich. Or as StuckonStupid quips: “Will Tom Delay be indicted for jaywalking too?”

I’m skeptical that this new grand jury was impaneled long enough to time to hear evidence, much less to have voted on these charges.

This is also proof positive that Ronnie Earle is an incompetent district attorney and a political hack whose only agenda was to make Tom DeLay pay a political price for daring to working against Earle’s political agenda.

Let’s hope that all of these charges are summarily dismissed before trial and that Mr. Earle is removed under the ethics cloud that’s hanging over his head.

UPDATE: John Hinderaker at Powerline adds “I know that ethics complaints, etc., have been filed against Earle for his misconduct, and an effort is underway to bar him from the practice of law. But the real solution is for the electorate to turn him out of office. The man is a disgrace to honest lawyers everywhere.

Mark Noonan concludes: “I feel pity for these Democrats - is politics really that important to you? Is the taste of revenge for alleged wrongs that sweet?”

The answer is obviously, yes.

Cross-posted at BoxerWatch

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 4th, 2005 at 7:34 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, DNC, Law, Liberals, RNC, Washington, DC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.