New indictment against Tom DeLay

A different grand jury in Austin Texas today indicted Tom DeLay for money laundering.

According to The Associated Press:

By APRIL CASTRO, Associated Press Writer AUSTIN, Texas

A Texas grand jury indicted Rep. Tom DeLay on a new charge of money laundering Monday, less than a week after another grand jury leveled a conspiracy charge that forced DeLay to temporarily step down as House majority leader.

Both indictments accuse DeLay and two political associates of conspiring to get around a state ban on corporate campaign contributions by funneling the money through a political action committee to the
Republican National Committee in Washington.

The RNC then sent back like amounts to distribute to Texas candidates in 2002, the indictment alleges.

So what is money laundering, anyway? Here is a brief explanation:

Money laundering is a process whereby the origin of funds generated by illegal means is concealed (drug trafficking, gun smuggling, corruption, etc.). The objective of the operation, which usually takes places in several stages, consists in making the capital and assets that are illegally gained seem as though they are derived from a legitimate source, and inserting them into economic circulation.( From Micheloud & Cie )

In this case, the corporate donations to Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature in the 2000 election were from a source considered illegal under Texas Law, so they were laundered through the Republican National Committee to conceal their illegal origen. Then they were sent on to Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee in Texas.

I find it an interesting coincidence that the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Bill took effect in the 2002 election, making direct corporate donations to candidates for federal office illegal. Tom DeLay gained a lot of his power in the House throught the K-Street Project which forwarded corporate donations to the candidates DeLay approved, so all of a sudden in the 2002 election he presumably had access to corporate funds that he could not legally get to federal candidates running for election. A logical place for those funds would be where they would influence state elections. They certainly did this in Texas, switching the Texas House to the Republican Party for the first time since Reconstruction.

The only snag was that the funds that were given to the Republican candidates could not be identified as coming from an illegal source, corporations. This was under a century-old state law. The way to do that would be to launder the funds.

The pattern is clear. What evidence Ronnie Earle has to actually prove it in court is another matter, but the Grand Juries seem to believe that there is a good case for an indictment at least.

Phone calls, e-mails, and the documents of TRMPAC in collecting funds when they used Tom DeLay's name and said the funds were to be used to elect Republicans to office should all be available, and it looks like at least one of the corporations has people ready to testify against DeLay according to Mark Kleimann. Against that is one of America's finest defense attorneys, Dick DeGuerin from Houston.

DeLay has had to step down as Majority Leader, which may reduce his power to coerce funds from the corporations to pay for his defense. Tom has been talking bravely about his ability to work with the Speaker of the House much as he had previously as Majority Leader, but he has gone from being Majority Leader to a back-bencher in Congress. Roy Blunt took the Majority Leader position in spite of DeLay's desire to put a place-holder into that position, and Roy Blunt is known to be highly ambitious. My bet is that Tom is sharply weakened. The size of his defense fund will be an indicator.

Tom DeLay really does live in interesting times.