In the latest sign that there is, in fact, a righteous God, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R- ) has just been
indicted by a Texas grand jury on conspiracy charges.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. Tom DeLay said Wednesday he will step aside as House majority leader following his indictment by a Texas grand jury on conspiracy charges.
DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.
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"The defendants entered into an agreement with each other or with TRMPAC (Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee) to make a political contribution in violation of the Texas election code," says the four-page indictment. "The contribution was made directly to the Republican National Committee within 60 days of a general election."
The indictment against the second-ranking, and most assertive Republican leader came on the final day of the grand jury's term. It followed earlier indictments of a state political action committee founded by DeLay and three of his political associates.
As I've said before, the corruption in the Republican ranks is reaching unprecedented heights and, lucky for us, it's all happening at once. DeLay not only has this to deal with, but multiple ethics issues still swirling in the House and the toxic connection to Jack Abramoff. On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist is under fire for his recent stock dump. (And if you don't think that will be a problem, you missed the CBS Evening News last night. Frist came off like a pedophile.) Plus, in the biggest development of all, we still have Patrick FitzGerald waiting to hand down indictments in the Plame scandal. This could be a banner season for disgraced Republicans.
In the latest sign that there is, in fact, a righteous God, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R- ) has just been indicted by a Texas grand jury on conspiracy charges.
6 comments:
I'm I ungrateful to wish this was happening seven months from now?
Or, better, a year ago?
It would've been nice to have this come out a little later (or earlier) but I think we're entering a new season of scandals. And frankly, it's better to have this come out while the president is already down. It adds to the pain.
Having DeLay indicted makes me so happy on so many different levels, but I wonder if the Average Joe really gives a flying fook if someone (even the majority leader of the house) violated campaign finance laws.
This scandal is pretty small potatoes in the scheme of the scandals (from an Average Joe point of view). The big one will be if Rove is indicted for Plamegate. The furious effort to muddy the waters on that matter won't have much effect on the public consciousness. The DeLay matter, however, can just be explained away by, "These campaign laws are so complex. Anyone can run afoul of them without even trying. Sorry, won't happen again."
I think it matters. The GOP rode to power in '94 on cleaning house and getting those old corrupt politicians out. Every story with a leading Republican and the terms "indicted" or "under investigation" or "his family's HMO business" linked together, well, that's gold for us.
And thank God the GOP backed off its initial plans to have the sane and reasonable David Dreier replace DeLay. Instead they're going to replace him with Roy Blunt, a man who's simply the Missouri version of DeLay.
I'm glad they went with Blunt as well. I read some smart blogger (TPM, maybe?) who suggested that Drier would've just been a placeholder for Delay, but this guy Blunt is one of the power players.
I also agree that any indictment is a good indictment. Not only does Delay have other possible uglinesses in his future, he was censured 3 times by the republican-controlled house ethics committee last year. And don't forget some of the backstory to the redistricting thing that TRMPAC was involved with (hunting down the dems w/ federal resources, etc). The more the media fills in the story (if they do, that is; man did Chris Matthews go easy on Delay last night), the worse it'll be for Delay.
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