Arrest warrant issued for DeLay

[destruction]

Arrest warrant issued for DeLay

A routine step before court appearance

Wednesday, October 19, 2005; Posted: 3:19 p.m. EDT (19:19 GMT)

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A Texas court issued a warrant Wednesday for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to appear for booking, where he is likely to face the fingerprinting and photo mug shot he had hoped to avoid.

Bail was initially set at $10,000 as a routine step before his first court appearance on conspiracy and money laundering charges. Travis County court officials said DeLay was ordered to appear at the Fort Bend County jail for booking.

The warrant was "a matter of routine and bond will be posted," DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin said.

The lawyer declined to say when DeLay would surrender to authorities but said the lawmaker would make his first court appearance Friday morning.

The charges against the Texas Republican stem from allegations that a DeLay-founded Texas political committee funneled corporate money into state GOP legislative races through the National Republican Party. Texas law prohibits use of corporate money to elect state candidates.

DeLay is charged with conspiracy to violate state election laws and money laundering, felony counts that triggered House Republican rules that forced him to step aside as majority leader.

Two separate indictments charge that DeLay and two political associates had the money distributed to state legislative candidates in a roundabout way -- sending it from the political action committee in Texas to the Republican National Committee in Washington and finally back to candidates' campaigns.

DeLay has denied wrongdoing.

The effort had major political consequences, first by helping Republicans take control of the Texas Legislature in the 2002 elections. The Legislature then redrew congressional boundaries according to a DeLay-inspired plan, took command of the state's U.S. House delegation and helped the GOP retain its U.S. House majority.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/19/delay.indictment.ap/index.html

[drlogic]

Judge in DeLay Case Backed MoveOn.org

Supporters of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay might not be overly paranoid to suspect that there is just a hint of politics complicating his legal troubles:

When the Texas Republican appears in court on Friday to face money-laundering charges, the presiding judge will be a Democratic Party activist who has contributed money to the George Soros-backed MoveOn.org, Sen. John Kerry and the Democratic National Committee.

DeLay will face a hearing in Austin before state district Judge Bob Perkins, whose political contributions include:

$200 to presidential candidate John Kerry on July 14, 2004.

$200 to Sen. Kerry on July 24, 2004.

$475 to Kerry on July 29, 2004.

$200 to MoveOn.org on Sept. 11, 2004.

$200 to the Democratic National Committee on Oct. 13, 2004.

Another $200 to the DNC the very next day.

[drlogic]

Monday, Oct. 17, 2005 9:59 a.m. EDT

Ronnie Earle: DeLay Evidence Missing

The most compelling piece of evidence cited by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to implicate House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in a money laundering and conspiracy case can't be located, Earle's prosecution team admitted on Friday.

Indictments against DeLay and fundraisers Jim Ellis and John Colyandro allege that Ellis gave "a document that contained the names of several candidates for the Texas House" to a Republican National Committee official in 2002, reports the Houston Chronicle.

The document was touted as proof that DeLay was part of a scheme to swap $190,000 in restricted corporate money for the same amount of money from individuals that could be legally used by Texas candidates.

But Earle's prosecution team told the court on Friday that they had only a "similar" list and not the one allegedly given to the RNC. Late in the day, they released a list of 17 Republican candidates in Texas, but fewer than half are alleged to have received money as part of the alleged DeLay plot.

DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin immediately pounced on the development, telling the Chronicle that the lack of a list "destroys" Earle's case against the three men.

"That's astonishing, astonishing that they would get a grand jury to indict and allege there is a list and then they have to admit in open court the first time they appear in open court that there is no list," DeGuerin said.

Prosecutor Earle engaged in similar tactics in 1993, when he twice indicted Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for misuse of campaign funds, only to have the case dismissed both times. Earle indicted a third time, but when the case went to trial he failed to produce any evidence and was forced to dismiss all charges.

[drlogic]

October 06, 2005, 7:33 a.m.

Ronnie Earle Should Not Be a Prosecutor

The abuses of power in the Tom DeLay case should offend Democrats and Republicans alike.

If there is one thing liberals and conservatives ought to be able to agree on, it is this: Ronnie Earle, district attorney of Travis County, Texas, has no business wielding the enormous powers of prosecution.

I don't know Congressman Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader. I certainly don't know if he's done anything illegal, let alone something so illegal as to warrant indictment. It doesn't look like it — and at least one grand jury has already refused to indict him (a fact Earle appears to have tried to conceal from the public as he scrambled to find a new grand jury that would). Yet experience shows it is foolhardy for those who don't know all the facts to hazard a judgment about such things.

One thing is sure, though, and it ought to make anyone who cares about basic fairness angry. The investigation of DeLay, a matter of national gravity is being pursued with shocking ethical bankruptcy by the district attorney — by Ronnie Earle.

For nearly 20 years, I had the privilege of being a prosecutor in the best law-enforcement office in the United States, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Being a prosecutor is the world's greatest job because it is honest work for the highest cause — service to one's own community. And it is work that has precious little to do with politics.

In their private lives, many of my fellow government lawyers were political independents, either by design (i.e., out of a conscious rectitude holding that law enforcement should be above politics) or because they were just apolitical. Most, as one would expect in New York, were Democrats. A large percentage, as, again, one would expect from a group of mostly young people educated in top schools, was proudly liberal. Over coffee, or lunch, or dinner, they and we few, hardy conservatives would have spirited debates over all manner of issues.

In the four corners of a case, however, none of that mattered a wit. Within those four corners, there were rules and responsibilities. There was recognition that prosecutors have breathtaking power over the lives of those they investigate. Power inarguably vital to the rule of law. But power which, if used recklessly or maliciously, can leave lives in tatters. The lives not only of the innocent and the guilty, but of the justice system itself.

This was especially so in investigations of political corruption. We prosecuted Republicans and Democrats, in about equal measure. The cases were hard, but checking your politics at the door was never hard, for at least two reasons.

First, there tends to be nothing ideological about the crimes committed by politicians. They are a stew of pettiness, greed and above-it-all arrogance over which neither party has a monopoly, and the offensiveness of which cuts across philosophical divides.

Second, some wrongs are simply not intended to be crimes. Among them are political wrongs: sleazy abuses of power, cronyism, most acts of nepotism, half-truths or outright lies in campaigns, etc. In a free society, these get sorted out in our bumptious political system. Usually, absent shades of financial fraud, bribery, and extortion, prosecutors should stay their hands. There are too many real crimes to waste resources on that sort of thing. More significantly, the risk of criminalizing politics would only discourage honest citizens from participating in matters of public concern.

The code prosecutors live by is not a liberal or conservative one. It is a code of ethics — of nonpartisan, non-ideological honor. Of course many prosecutors are ambitious. Of course prosecutors want to win. But even the ambitious ones who care a bit too much about winning quickly learn that success is intimately tied to doing things the right way. And not least because that is the norm their colleagues follow — as well as the standard by which the defense bar and the judiciary (populated by no small percentage of former prosecutors) scrutinize them. It is, moreover, the standard the public demands they meet.

People want to see the guilty convicted, but they also want to feel good about the way it is done. The prosecutor is the public's lawyer, and his duty is not merely to get the job done but to get it done right. The second part is just as crucial as the first. They are equal parts of doing justice. No one expects perfection, which is unattainable in any human endeavor. But if the outcomes of the justice system are to be regarded as legitimate, as befitting a decent society, people have to be confident that if they stood accused, the prosecutor would enforce their rights and make sure they got a fair fight.

So there are certain things that are just flat-out verboten. Most basic are these: to resist public comment about non-public, investigative information; to abjure any personal stake in the litigation that could suggest decisions regarding the public interest are being made to suit the prosecutor's private interests; and — if all that is not Sesame Street simple enough — to remain above any financial or political entanglement that could render one's objectivity and judgment suspect.

In the profession, these things come under the hoary rubric of "avoiding the appearance of impropriety." In layman's terms, they are about having an I.Q. high enough that you know to put your socks on before your shoes. This is bedrock stuff. It is central to the presumption of innocence, due process, and equal protection under the law that prosecutors owe even the most despicable offenders. It is foundational to the integrity of the system on which rest our security, our economy, and our freedoms.

And Ronnie Earle has flouted it in embarrassing, mind-numbingly brazen ways.

As Byron York has been reporting on NRO (see here, here, and here), Earle has partnered up with producers making a movie, called The Big Buy, about his Ahab's pursuit of DeLay. A movie about a real investigation? Giving filmmakers access to investigative information while a secret grand-jury probe is underway? Allowing them to know who is being investigated and why? To view proposed indictments even before the grand jury does? Allowing them into the sanctuary of the grand jury room, and actually to film grand jurors themselves? Creating a powerful incentive — in conflict with the duty of evenhandedness — to bring charges on flimsy evidence? For a prosecutor, these aren't just major lapses. They are firing offenses. For prosecutors such as those I worked with over the years, from across the political spectrum, I daresay they'd be thought firing-squad offenses.

Attending partisan fundraisers in order to speak openly about an ongoing grand jury investigation against an uncharged public official. As a moneymaking vehicle.

Penning a nakedly partisan op-ed (in the New York Times on November 23, 2004) about the political fallout of his grand-jury investigation of DeLay, then uncharged.

Settling cases by squeezing businesses to make hefty financial contributions to pet personal causes in exchange for exercising the public's power to dismiss charges.

Secretly shopping for new grand juries when, despite the incalculable advantages the prosecution has in that forum, the earlier grand jurors have found the case too weak to indict.

Ignoring the commission by members of his own party of the same conduct that he seeks to brand felonious when engaged in by members of the other party.

Such actions and tactics are reprehensible. They constitute inexcusably dishonorable behavior on the part of a public servant, regardless of whether the persons and entities investigated were in the wrong. They warrant universal censure.

If Congressman DeLay did something illegal, he, like anyone else, should be called to account. But he, like anyone else, is entitled to procedural fairness, including a prosecutor who not only is, but also appears to be, fair and impartial.

Ronnie Earle is not that prosecutor. He has disgraced his profession, and done grievous disservice to thousands of federal, state, and local government attorneys. Prosecutors of all persuasions whose common bond is a good faith commitment to the rules — but who will now bear the burden of suspicions fostered by Earle's excesses.

The burden, but not the cost. That will be borne by the public.

[drlogic]

DeLay Smile May Foil Democrat Campaign Ads

(10-20) 18:20 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Why is Tom DeLay smiling? After all, he's been indicted. Forced out of his job as House majority leader. And called into court for fingerprinting and a mugshot like a common criminal.

Answer: A photo of DeLay grinning from ear to ear doesn't pack quite the punch in a Democratic attack ad as one that looks more like the mugshot of, say, actor Hugh Grant.

Note the House of Representatives security pin on DeLay's lapel.

He looks in the photo like a proud member of Congress who might just have won the lottery, not one indicted on charges of money laundering. The photo looks like it could have been taken anywhere.

And that was just the point.

Democrats nationally are already sounding as if they'll make DeLay the poster boy for bad Republican behavior in next year's elections, when every House seat and a third of those in the Senate are up for grabs.

DeLay, an 11-term Texas congressman and former pest exterminator famous for enforcing GOP loyalty, faced a tough reelection campaign even before the indictment.

In the 2004 elections, DeLay won 55 percent of the vote, a relatively weak showing for a veteran House leader. His challenger next year is expected to be former Rep. Nick Lampson, who lost his seat in 2004 after he was forced to run in a new district under a redistricting plan pushed by DeLay.

For his mandatory booking Thursday, which caused him to miss voting on a gun industry bill popular in his home state, DeLay did everything he could to prevent images of the event from being committed to film.

Rather, the photo projects the confidence DeLay exhibits in all of his scuffles. For anyone who didn't get it, DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, articulated the message it was intended to send.

"If you saw Congressman DeLay's mugshot, he was smiling," DeGuerin told reporters. "He's eager and he's ready to go."

[destruction]

OWNED!!

Lawmaker DeLay goes to court on finance charges

Fri Oct 21, 2005 12:08 PM ET

By Jeff Franks

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Rep. Tom DeLay appeared in court on Friday to face campaign-finance charges, but the session was cut short by his lawyer's argument that the judge is a Democrat who cannot give a fair trial to the former second-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives.

State District Judge Bob Perkins said he would ask another judge to rule on a motion filed on Thursday by DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin. The motion asks that Perkins step aside from the case on the grounds that he gave money to Democratic candidates and the activist group MoveOn.org.

"It seems to me this is going to be a continuing issue when there's a Democratic judge and Republican defendant," Perkins said.

DeLay was once one of the nation's most powerful politicians, nicknamed "The Hammer" for his iron-fisted control of House Republicans, but now is an indicted felon fighting aggressively for his political life. He strode into the heavily secured courtroom with a smile on his face and wife Christine by his side.

Because of the abbreviated hearing, he did not stand before the judge to hear the charges against him or make any statements in court.

Afterward, he went to the nearby Texas Capitol, and with it as a backdrop, repeated that he is not guilty of a crime and only the victim of a Democratic political vendetta.

"I have been charged for defeating Democrats," a defiant DeLay said. "I have been charged for advancing the Republican agenda."

He and colleagues Jim Ellis and John Colyandro have been indicted by state grand juries in Austin for conspiracy and money laundering in a campaign-finance plan conducted through DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee, or TRMPAC.

They are accused of laundering $190,000 in corporate campaign contributions through the Republican National Committee for distribution to Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature. Texas law forbids the use of corporate money in political campaigns.

DeLay faces a sentence as long as life in prison if convicted.

TARGETED

DeLay said he has been targeted by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, because TRMPAC's activities helped Republicans take control of the Texas Legislature for the first time since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.

The legislature, under guidance from DeLay, then conducted a controversial remapping of Texas congressional districts and added five Republicans to the U.S. House.

DeGuerin, one of Texas' most prominent defense attorneys, told reporters after the hearing that Perkins had contributed to MoveOn.org and to Democratic candidates since the case came into his court a year ago.

He complained to Perkins that MoveOn.org was selling T-shirts of DeLay's mug shot taken on Thursday when he turned himself into police in Houston after an arrest warrant was issued.

DeLay, who was fingerprinted and put up bail of $10,000, is smiling broadly in the mug shot for police files.

The judge, DeGuerin complained, had "supported people who are in opposition to Congressman DeLay."

Perkins told DeGuerin he had not seen or bought the T-shirt and had contributed to MoveOn.org only ahead of last year's presidential election.

DeLay, who represents a Houston-area district, was indicted on September 28 and, as required by House Republican rules, resigned as majority leader. He was allowed to keep his congressional seat.

Along with the TRMPAC investigation, DeLay has been criticized in the past year for ethics problems involving lobbyists, fund-raising and foreign travel.

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-10-21T160752Z_01_ROB155989_RTRUKOC_0_US-POLITICS-DELAY.xml