Tom Delay indicted in campain finance scheme

[nostatic]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
Thus, in perfect Khmer Rouge style, the Sandinistas inflicted a ruthless forcible relocation of tens of thousands of Indians from their land.

Imagine a country forcibly relocating indians from their land. Sounds to me like that would be grounds for a preemptive dose of democracy...

[stevepaa]

Originally posted by Joeaksa

You cannot say that what Reagan would do unless you were working with him at the time. You already said that you were still in school at that time so I doubt that you had any personal contact with Reagan then or later. I have seen my guy with Reagan both at the White House and again before his death, so thats a bit stronger testament to where he comes from.

JoeA

Yes, I had no personal contact with him, but no sane person would consider nuclear war for such a situation. The only reference to a winnable nuclear option was in reference to USSR and when that came out the public went nuts, and the WH quickly retracted that kind of talk.

[hardflex]

There was a barracks bombed in Lebanon during Reagan's term as I recall, and he didn't go off on anybody. He was no dummy.

[Joeaksa]

In reference to my earlier comment about emails from Pelican. It now seems that at least 4 other people are getting messages saying to QUIT from Pelican. While it may be a server error as we were told so far everyone I have heard from who is getting this message was not sure about it either...

Will make a post and see how many people are getting this message.

Joe A

[cool_chick]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
Swept under the rug of course...nary a peep from the press...Easier to sweep it under the rug when nobody knows about it, you see.

Yeah mul, swept under the rug


Ex-Clinton aide's fate in jury's hands

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/25/fundraiser.trial/index.html

Jury Clears Ex-Clinton Aide

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/27/politics/main698306.shtml

The press was sooo quiet huh?

I can't believe you don't remember the trial...I do....

[BillyIdaho]

Originally posted by cool_chick
I can't believe you don't remember the trial...I do....

CC -
You remember the trial because you havn't drank the Kool-aid yet...

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by nostatic
Imagine a country forcibly relocating indians from their land. Sounds to me like that would be grounds for a preemptive dose of democracy...

So you must side with the Jews, that the Palestinians should vacate the lands that the Jews have inhabited for thousands of years...correct?

[Mulhollanddose]

[Joeaksa]

Just watching Meet the Press as well as our local talking heads.

How many people still feel that the Delay situation is not political?

How many people know that the DA could not get a grand jury to indict Delay after 5 attempts at doing so? 5 different groups of people refused to agree that there was enough evidence to procecute. Most DA's would realize that the case was not strong enough but not Ronnie Earle.

Finally on the 6th hand picked grand jury did they indict Delay and DA Ronnie Earle finally got to move ahead on the case he has been working on for years.

Will be fun to see how this one turns out, especially after Peloisi has just been caught doing the same thing that Delay did...

JoeA

[cool_chick]

Grand juror: DeLay evidence is there


'Stacks of papers' support indictment, foreman says; U.S. Rep. says there's no case


07:47 PM CDT on Saturday, October 1, 2005


By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News


AUSTIN – Grand jurors were presented a load of evidence, including testimony and phone records, that led them to believe Rep. Tom DeLay should be tried on a conspiracy charge, the leader of the Travis County grand jury that indicted the congressman said Friday.

"It was not one of those sugarcoated deals that we handed to [District Attorney] Ronnie Earle," William M. Gibson said.

He added: "Mr. Earle has stacks and stacks of papers – evidence of telephone calls from Mr. DeLay and everybody."

Mr. DeLay has said that Mr. Earle has no evidence to prove that he tried to subvert Texas election laws. The Sugar Land Republican's lawyers did not return calls seeking comments on Mr. Gibson's description of the grand jury proceedings.

The indictment stems from the activities of Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee created by Mr. DeLay. The group, known as TRMPAC, is accused of trying to circumvent Texas laws that make it illegal to use corporate or union money in political campaigns.

Labeling it a money laundering scheme, Mr. Earle says that TRMPAC took $190,000 in corporate donations and routed it – along with the names of seven Statehouse candidates – to the Republican National Committee in September 2002. The RNC then sent out $190,000 in contributions to those same seven candidates, who couldn't legally have accepted corporate money.

At the heart of the conspiracy charge against Mr. DeLay is whether he knew about the transaction. Experts on Texas law say that knowledge alone might be all that is needed for a conviction under state law.

Mr. DeLay, who stepped down as House majority leader when the indictment was issued Wednesday, and his lawyers say he knew nothing about the money exchange at the time it happened and that the indictment is a political vendetta against him.

But in the first public acknowledgements of what evidence against Mr. DeLay might exist, Mr. Gibson, a 76-year-old former sheriff's deputy and state insurance investigator, said there were ample indications of the congressman's involvement.

He said that Mr. DeLay provided the district attorney with a written statement that was given to the grand jury to consider but that Mr. DeLay declined to sign a sworn document or testify under oath.

Mr. DeLay "just gave a statement saying he did nothing. And he didn't know how that money got back down here and all that stuff," Mr. Gibson said. "We believe different from other paperwork we got."

He added, "I am very much convinced that he had" knowledge of the transaction.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/1001 05dntexdelay.20c896f8.html

[cool_chick]

And Joe, I've heard from the neocons about these 5 previous grand juries who chose to not indict, but I've yet to see proof of this. I've asked repeatedly as well on another board, to no avail.

I've also searched for credible evidence that this is true, I can't find it. Do you have a link Joe?

[techweenie]

Originally posted by hardflex
There was a barracks bombed in Lebanon during Reagan's term as I recall, and he didn't go off on anybody. He was no dummy.

Not quite true. Reagan understood the PR benefit of taking action, so a few days after the Beruit barracks bombing, he had US forces attack Grenada -- a country with no involvement, whatsoever. This was the inspiration for the movie "Wag the Dog."

This thread has sure wandered a long ways away from DeLay/Frist/Abramoff, hasn't it? I guess some can't take the heat.

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by cool_chick
And Joe, I've heard from the neocons about these 5 previous grand juries who chose to not indict, but I've yet to see proof of this. I've asked repeatedly as well on another board, to no avail.

I've also searched for credible evidence that this is true, I can't find it. Do you have a link Joe?

CC, let me look for it. If Tim Russert and his gang did not have issue with it then its got to be somewhere.

I do not disagree that there may be evidence of wrong doing, or even that he did do something wrong, its just very interesting that most everyone says that this is not political but no one mentions that it took 6 grand juries to indict. Thats not a good sign for Earle.

JoeA

[cool_chick]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
CC, let me look for it. If Tim Russert and his gang did not have issue with it then its got to be somewhere.

I do not disagree that there may be evidence of wrong doing, or even that he did do something wrong, its just very interesting that most everyone says that this is not political but no one mentions that it took 6 grand juries to indict. Thats not a good sign for Earle.

JoeA

BTW, when I was talking about neocons, I want to make it clear I was not referring to you. Just wanted to make that clear.

I just find it surprising they would bring the same evidence to 6 grand juries. If this is true, maybe he had additional proof each time, but to me, I want to know if this is even true.

It doesn't make much sense. A grand jury is a group of unknown civilians called for jury duty to look at evidence.....it makes no sense that this one would indict over nothing...what, were they paid off or something? See what I mean, why it sounds kooky to me?

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by cool_chick
It doesn't make much sense. A grand jury is a group of unknown civilians called for jury duty to look at evidence.....it makes no sense that this one would indict over nothing...what, were they paid off or something? See what I mean, why it sounds kooky to me?

Thats why I did not like it either. Usually a DA brings something to a grand jury and if they do not like it then its dropped. If Earle did do this 6 times then there is something more going on here...

Joe A

It was not easy, as no one wants to report on it but here it is in the third paragraph:

http://urbangrounds.com/2005/09/28/ronnie-earle-indicted/

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Travis County DA Ronnie Earle (D) Indicted

For malicious abuse of power and egregious partisan hackery
AUSTIN, TX—For the third time in recent memory, the partisan fanatic posing as my county’s District Attorney, Ronnie Earle, has abused the power of his elected office to exact baseless political retribution against his opposition.

Ronnie Earle’s 1994 indictment against Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) was quickly dismissed and his charges in the 1980s against former Attorney General Jim Mattox (D)—another political foe of Earle—fell apart at trial.

Ronnie Earle convened five Grand Juries in an attempt to indict Tom Delay. None of these previous five Grand Juries could so much as indict a ham sandwich, much less Tom Delay. Not to be deterred, Mr. Earle convened a sixth Grand Jury (and I was wondering why my taxes where so high here in Travis County last year). Mr. Earle was finally able to find a Grand Jury who would hand down the indictment that he was begging for. With the entire Grand Jury process so slanted here in Travis County (Austin), I’m amazed that it took them 6 Grand Juries.

But even then, the grand jury only came through with a vaguely worded indictment for the last-resort charge of “conspiracy”.

***

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From the National Review:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/

"Targeting DeLay"

The editors of National Review weigh in on Ronnie Earle's indictment of Tom DeLay:

Following the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, conservatives are left wondering what to make of the charges. The answer is simple. The charges are absurd and should be thrown out of court.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has charged DeLay with conspiracy to make a contribution to a political party in violation of the Texas Election Code. The alleged violation involved a money swap between the now-defunct Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), which DeLay helped found but never managed, and the Republican National State Elections Committee (RNSEC). TRMPAC sent a check for $190,000 to RNSEC, and RNSEC then sent checks totaling approximately the same amount to Texas House candidates in October of 2002. Earle, a Democrat, calls this money laundering, because the money that TRMPAC sent to RNSEC came from corporations, which are barred from contributing to campaigns in Texas.

Earle is wrong. Before campaign-finance reform, this kind of soft-money for hard-money swap was perfectly legal and happened all the time. In October of 2002, the Texas Democratic party did the same thing when it sent $75,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and received $75,000 back from the DNC.

Also, as former Department of Justice official Barbara Comstock noted yesterday, “Had corporations sent money directly to the RNC or RNSEC, the transaction would be legal. How could anyone conspire to do indirectly what could legally have been done directly?” Earle considers these transactions illegal because he thinks they should be, and he’s convinced a grand jury to play along with him.


In addition, DeLay denies that he had anything to do with the (legal) transaction at issue. It strains credulity to think, as Earle apparently alleges, that the House Majority Leader was involved in the day-to-day mailing of checks by this PAC.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
I do not disagree that there may be evidence of wrong doing, or even that he did do something wrong, its just very interesting that most everyone says that this is not political but no one mentions that it took 6 grand juries to indict. Thats not a good sign for Earle.

JoeA

Actually NO Joe, this thing is falling apart at the seems already...NOBODY is getting behind this but the most wacked out Democrat politician like Nancy Pelosi (who BTW has some nerve given her fund-raising violations) and some in the LSM who hope-beyond-hope that they got a big fish this time.

Ronnie Earle is gonna hang on this one.

[cool_chick]

I'm sorry Joe, but that's not sufficient for me...a blog, opinion page....

you know what I mean? Just because a blogger says that doesn't mean it's true.

Dates of these grand juries, what was presented, etc.....hell, even an interview with one of the previous jurors....

I'm deferring judgment until trial.....I want to actually see the evidence, not rely on suspicions, feelings....

[techweenie]

LOL!

DeLay wasn't indicted by Earle.

Stop the wailing and rending of garments. Let the courts decide.

[cool_chick]

Originally posted by techweenie
LOL!

DeLay wasn't indicted by Earle.

Stop the wailing and rending of garments. Let the courts decide.

I'm thinking these people here think there's some sort of "payoff" conspiracy....like they paid off the grand jury or something. How likely is that?

[techweenie]

Originally posted by cool_chick
I'm thinking these people here think there's some sort of "payoff" conspiracy....like they paid off the grand jury or something. How likely is that?

Our local neocons would claim alien abduction if it helped them rationalize the indictment.

Earle got indictments of 15 politicians -- 11 of whom were Democrats. But don't look for a rational response from the usual apologists here. Somehow, they'll find a way to invoke Clinton in 3 posts or less...