Tom DeLay is being attacked by a politically motivated prosecutor in a calculated act of revenge. Texas democrats, a species becoming almost as rare as the dodo, blame DeLay for their electoral impotence (I guess they are too dense to realize that Texas is a red state where their liberal BS just won't fly).

The sleazebag behind this persecution is named Ronnie Earle, a rogue prosecutor who has tried, and failed, before to bring down a powerful Texas Republican:

Perhaps the most telling case of Earle's political cases has been his 1994 legal attack on U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison - a Republican. Earle had her indicted on frivilous charges of allegedly misusing state telephones for political business.

At a pretrial hearing, the judge questioned the admissibility of the prosecution's evidence and Earle declined to present a case.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/article ... 4111.shtml

Besides the evidence that proves Earle is using his office to conduct political reprisals, he apparently moonlights as a shakedown artist:

But recent press reports seem to ignore the fact that Earle, as part of the DeLay case, also has criminally indicted eight U.S. corporations, including Sears and Cracker Barrel, Bacardi USA, Westar Energy, Williams Companies, and several other companies.

At the time, Earle said he could prove "the outline of an effort to use corporate contributions to control representative democracy in Texas."

The companies, of course, denied wrongdoing.

But Earle later cleared the companies after demanding they make donations to charities he backed. Reportedly he sought as much as $1 million from Sears. In the end, Earle was said to have "persuaded" these companies to fork over six-figure donations in exchange for clearing them of wrongdoing.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/article ... 4111.shtml

While the news of DeLay's indictment is obviously allowing many liberals to forego the Viagra (as evidenced by a certain poster's rant on this very forum), have no doubt their members will soon be flaccid and lifeless once again, as this attempt at political persecution evaporates. As Congressman Henry Bonilla of Texas observed, "We saw what happened when he pulled a shenanigan like this against Kay Hutchison years ago. At the 11th hour, he just stood up and said, ‘It's a bogus indictment.'"

Another interesting fact emerges:

The formal charge is conspiracy, which points to another claim that DeLay defenders have made against Mr. Earle.
Last year, Travis County prosecutors concluded that only Mr. DeLay's local prosecutor had the power to pursue an election-code violation against him. But criminal conspiracy, even if the underlying offense is an election-code violation, operates under different jurisdiction rules.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050 ... _page2.htm

Since Tom DeLay is innocent of any wrongdoing, democrats had to shop around to find a crooked democrat prosecutor in another jurisdiction of Texas who would be willing to bring a charge, any charge, whatever charge they could think of, against him. This stinks to high heaven.

Tom DeLay is a big boy, and he's not about to roll over and play dead for these poliitcal hacks who are out to get him. When the smoke clears, he'll be exonerated, and Ronnie Earle may very well be under investigation himself. From what we know of Earle, it certainly sounds like he's the one who deserves to be sent to prison for corruption and abuse of power.

"Tom Delay's criminal indictment is a product of the GOP's culture of corruption." Those were the words of Sen. Ted Kennedy, perhaps best known as 'The Hero of Chappaquiddick'. You know, the guy who drove off a bridge and left an unconscious woman to drown in an submerged car.

Here's another priceless quote:

"It is part of a pattern of arrogance and abuse of power that we have seen from the Republicans." So says Representative Barney Frank...the guy who had a HOMOSEXUAL PROSTITUTION RING operating out of his Washington DC apartment. Lucky for Barney, the democrats were in charge of Congress at the time, so he didn't even get so much as a slap on his limp wrist. Last time I checkd, prostitution was illegal. Oh well.

More on this story as it develops. Or perhaps I should say, as it unravels.

The reaction to the announcement of this indictment has caused so much glee on the left that it's hard not to react to it, and even if one does manage to exercise some restraint and examine the surrounding facts and circumstances, it only makes one more suspicious that there is indeed a political motive at work.

Some on the left are actually publicly bemoaning the fact that Rep. DeLay is being indicted at this time. They would have preferred to have this matter pursued much closer to the 2006 election, to maximize what they see as the potential to cause political damage to the GOP.

In addition, there are also questions being raised about the indictment itself, and the rather nebulous charge being levelled at Rep. DeLay. The following is a transcript from an MSNBC interview of Dick Deguerin, an attorney for Rep. DeLay:

<em><b>DAN ABRAMS:</b> Now in another ABRAMS REPORT exclusive is Dick Deguerin, one of Tom DeLay‘s attorney.

Do you think is it a risky tactic for him to go after the D.A. [Earle] so overtly. Does it make you as a lawyer, nervous to hear your client going after a D.A. in that matter?

<b>DICK DEGUERIN, TOM DELAY‘S ATTORNEY:</b> Not at all. In fact, it needs to be done. Ronnie Earle needs to be exposed for what he is. And that is he‘s a partisan prosecutor, using the grand jury, using the power of his office to try to destroy someone who‘s been elected by the people. Now, you might not like what Tom DeLay has done with politics. He‘s changed the face of politics in Texas. But that doesn‘t mean that a D.A. needs to get in and try to destroy him by use of an indictment.

<b>ABRAMS:</b> Is it not true that Ronnie Earle has prosecuted a lot more Democrats than Republicans?

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> That‘s true. And that‘s the old saw that he hauls out every time he‘s criticized about this. But the problem is that for a long time, there weren‘t anything but Democrats in Texas, so there wasn‘t anybody else for him to prosecute.

<b>ABRAMS:</b> But still, I mean if he‘s going after Democrats, you know, if the claim is that this is a guy who‘s out to get Republicans because he‘s such a partisan, doesn‘t it help his case that there are so many more Democrats he‘s gone after than Republicans?

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> No. What it means is he‘s going after his political enemies, whether they be Democrats or more of them along time ago than there were Republicans. He goes after his political enemies and he uses the power of his office to try to affect politics. That‘s what I disagree with so strongly.

He did this with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison when she was about to change the complexion of politics in Texas and he failed and now he‘s trying to do it with Tom DeLay, who did change the complexion of politics in Texas.

<b>ABRAMS:</b> Dick, you‘re one of the best-known attorneys in Texas. You have dealt with a lot of prosecutors in the state of Texas. Have you ever gone after a D.A. almost this personally in response to an indictment?

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> Well, it needs to be done, Dan. Yes, in Kay Bailey Hutchison‘s case, we did the same thing because it was so blatantly political and it needs to be done here. I don‘t like to attack a prosecutor personally, if that person is acting as a professional ought to act. But even against, I think, the advice of his own lawyers in his own office, Ronnie Earle has secured this indictment, basically because Tom DeLay gets punished before going to trial. He gets removed as the majority leader in the House...

<b>ABRAMS:</b> That‘s corruption that you‘re accusing him of, right? I mean if he‘s doing it for political gain and indicting someone for political gain, that‘s just pure, unadulterated corruption.

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> It‘s not corruption in the sense that he‘s getting a payoff from somebody paying him money, but it certainly is misusing his office by this indictment. We‘re going to demonstrate that because Tom DeLay didn‘t do anything. He didn‘t do anything wrong.

<b>ABRAMS:</b> All right.

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> He didn‘t do anything. In fact, if you look at this indictment, it doesn‘t really accuse Tom DeLay of doing anything.

<b>ABRAMS:</b> Let‘s talk about exactly what the allegations. They‘re saying that this group, Texans for Republican Majority, gathered $190,000 in corporate contributions. They say that—and this is the illegal part that that ends up in the hands of the Republican National Committee.

They‘re saying it was too close to the election, it‘s coming from a corporation and therefore, it violates election law. It‘s then given to seven Republican candidates for the Texas House of Representatives.

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> No, wrong. No, that‘s not true.

<b>ABRAMS:</b> That‘s wrong about the allegation...

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> That‘s not what happened.

<b>ABRAMS:</b> Well that‘s the allegation.

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> Those are not the facts and that‘s not...

<b>ABRAMS:</b> Well that‘s the allegation...

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> Those are not the facts...

<b>ABRAMS:</b> Right. That‘s fine...

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> I don‘t care what the allegations are.

<b>ABRAMS:</b> I‘m sorry. It‘s important to me. You‘re not saying that I‘m misstating the facts. You‘re saying that Ronnie Earle is charging him with something he didn‘t do.

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> That‘s right...

<b>ABRAMS:</b> OK. All right, go ahead...

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> ... something that didn‘t happen and Ronnie Earle has been given the proof that the $190,000, there was actually more than that—that came from corporate contributions to TRMPAC, came at a lawful time. TRMPAC kept that money separate. It went to Washington and it was spent there on states, which allow corporate contributions.

No money, no corporate money came to candidates in Texas that came from corporations. Only money that came from individuals who contributed to individuals, so no law was broken.

<b>ABRAMS:</b> Why did—I was interested in the indictment seeing that Tom DeLay through his counsel, waived the statute of limitations. Why do that?

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> He did that because he didn‘t have anything to hide and he thought that with -- if they just spent a little more time with Ronnie Earle and showing him what the facts were -- by the way, Tom DeLay cooperated throughout this investigation, gave up documents, went in and even subjected himself to interrogation by Ronnie Earle. And so, he waived those statute of limitations because Ronnie Earle said if you don‘t waive the statute of limitations on this day, I‘m going to indict you on this day, so he waived it and wanted another chance to go in and try to explain to Ronnie Earle that there wasn‘t a crime, but... So that‘s what happened.

<b>ABRAMS:</b> You weren‘t even surprised by the indictment though were you?

<b>DEGUERIN:</b> No. No, I‘ve expected it for quite some time.</em>

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9530350/

While this news has caused a considerable stir inside the Beltway and among political junkies, I'm not quite sure how it will register with the average American, outside of Texas, anyway. Time will tell.

In any event, if the presumption of innocence was due to the likes of OJ Simpson, Scott Peterson, Robert Blake, and Michael Jackson, then it certainly extends to Tom DeLay. We have yet to even hear any evidence against him, if any exists. This, coupled with the fact that it's not even clear precisely what Rep. DeLay is being accused of, certainly makes him worthy of a presumption of innocence.

<font size=3><b>The Movie: Ronnie Earle, on a Mission from God</b></font>
The Texas DA is inspired by the Bible to prosecute Tom DeLay.

A new film featuring Travis County, Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle as he pursued the investigation that led to the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay portrays Earle less as a partisan figure than as a messianic leader on a mission to rid American politics of the "evil" influence of money.

A copy of the still-unfinished film, entitled The Big Buy, was obtained by National Review Online Friday.

On several occasions in the film, Earle engages in monologues on what he believes is the sinister effect of money in politics. "The root of the evil of the corporate and large-monied interest domination of politics is money," Earle says as he takes the filmmakers on a nighttime drive around Austin. "This is in the Bible. This isn't rocket science. The root of all evil truly is money, especially in politics. People talk about how money is the mother's milk of politics. Well, it's the devil's brew. And what we've got to do, we've got to turn off the tap."

In another scene, Earle describes how he deals with offenders in cases like the campaign-finance investigation. "It's important that we forgive those who come to us in a spirit of contrition and the desire for forgiveness. That's important. But if they don't, then God help them." The film then dissolves to a picture of DeLay....

http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200509301738.asp

Ronnie Earle wants us to believe he isn't a partisan hack, yet he agreed to cooperate with filmmakers (he probably thinks he's the star of the movie). His views on the evils of money are interesting particularly in light of the fact that he agreed to drop charges against corporations that had allegely made illegal contributions if they agreed to donate money to a cause of HIS liking. If these corporations were indeed breaking the law, wasn't it his OBLIGATION as a prosecutor to PROSECUTE them, instead of shaking them down for cash? Did he try his little extortion ploy on Tom DeLay as well? It's a fair question, given Earle's questionable record.

Wesley Pruden of the Washington Times hits the nail right on the head:

...the district attorney of Travis County, Texas, who indicts politicians he doesn't like simply for sport, hauled Rep. Tom DeLay, the leader of the Republican majority in the House, into the dock for unspecified crimes against Texas election law. Like the infamous conspiracy junkie Jim Garrison, the former district attorney in New Orleans, Ronnie Earle can't make charges stick. But a D.A. who wields a grand jury like a desperado with a .357 magnum can make life miserable for any ham sandwich in his way. Ronnie Earle doesn't care whether the indictment ever gets to a courtroom. He has accomplished already what he set out to do, to harass Tom DeLay and frighten Republicans.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/pruden.htm

Ronnie Earle may be employed by the state of Texas as a prosecutor, but persecuting Republicans doesn't occupy all of his time. He manages to find enough free moments here and there to raise money for the democrat hate machine! Not coincidentally, his vendetta against Tom DeLay comes in handy as a fundraising gimmick:

In an interview with The Washington Times earlier this year, Mr. Earle said he had "no idea" where his investigation would go. "Wherever the facts lead us," he said. "That's the way I have always operated."

Partisan fighting between Republicans and Democrats is particularly intense in Texas, but Republicans were particularly angered by the district attorney's speech in May at a Democratic fundraiser in Dallas.

Characterizing the DeLay case as involving money, power and corruption, Mr. Earle told Democrats: "This case is not just about Tom DeLay. If it isn't this Tom DeLay, it'll be another one, just like one bully replaces the one before."

The dinner and the speech raised $102,000 for Texas Values in Action, a political action committee created to help fund Democratic Party efforts to recapture control of the state legislature.

Texas Republicans demanded Mr. Earle's resignation, and a spokesman for Mr. DeLay said the speech demonstrated that the Travis County prosecutor was using his investigation as "a fundraising effort for Democrats."

http://washingtontimes.com/national/200 ... -6923r.htm

As the late former Texas Lt. Governor Bob Bullock (a democrat) once observed, Mr. Earle is like "a little boy playing with matches." Ronnie has been burned before. Just look at the humiliation he suffered when he tried this same crap on Kay Bailey Hutchison. You'd think Ronnie would have learned his lesson by now. Apparently not.

After the case against Hutchison fizzled (Earle was forced to drop the frivolous charges and the judge ordered an acquittal), the vindictive little Ronnie proudly displayed all his inadmissible evidence to the press. If he couldn't convict Hutchison, then he was going to do whatever he could to smear her good name. What a petty, vile, bitter little man.

The persecution of Tom DeLay continues, and in typical overreaching style. Now they are trying to claim that he was actually laundering money...LOL! They were going to have a hard enough time proving the ridiculous conspiracy charge, but of course obtaining a conviction was never really the point.

Much of the "victory" over Tom DeLay has already been won. The House Republican conference rules required him to step down as Majority Leader, which was the main goal of the DNC. I suppose they figure if they can somehow get him convicted that's just icing on the cake, but they know THAT'S not going to happen. They'll take what they can get, though.
He's out of the leadership now, and they can enjoy several weeks (at least) of dragging his name through the mud, hoping of course that much of that mud will splatter on fellow Republicans. They've got elections coming up next year, of course, and what else do they have to run on? Their ideas? LOL!

All of this makes me wonder about something else. Does Ronnie Earle own stock in a company that makes hand lotion? They'll certainly be selling a lot more of it to democrats now, what with all the news of these indictments, if you know what I mean...

Here's an excerpt from an interesting editorial I found:

<em>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.</em>

http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial ... 291317.asp

This case is ludicrous, as evidenced by the joke that's going around: "The bad news is that Tom DeLay has been indicted. The good news is that the prosecutor is Ronnie Earle."

It seems that the first indictment against Tom DeLay was botched. In his haste to persecute the popular and effective Congressman, Ronnie Earle apparently didn't notice that at the time of the alleged crime, the law that he claims was broken WASN'T EVEN ON THE BOOKS YET!

How can it be illegal to break a law that isn't even in force? I guess you'd have to ask Ronnie Earle. I'm sure the judge will be curious to know, and you can bet that Dick DeGuerin will be pressing hard for an answer on this question.

The Washington Times gets it right, again:

"[Ronnie Earle] will try to delay it as long as possible," Mr. DeGuerin said. Mr. DeGuerin and other DeLay supporters say that Mr. Earle has no prosecutable case against Mr. DeLay, so he's using the indictment to either force Mr. DeLay from his powerful perch in the party or push him from office altogether.

The Houston lawyer said it's the same "tactic" Mr. Earle used against another one of his clients, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who beat back charges of political misconduct pressed by Mr. Earle more than a decade ago.

Indeed, there are similarities in timing between the two cases.

In 1993, a Texas grand jury impaneled by Mr. Earle issued a last-minute indictment against Mrs. Hutchison. It was handed up on Sept. 27, the year before Mrs. Hutchison faced election.

This year, a Texas grand jury again issued its last-minute indictment against Mr. DeLay. Again, the indictment was handed up on Sept. 27 and again, it is the year before Mr. DeLay faces election.

If Mrs. Hutchison's case is any indicator, Mr. DeLay may be in for a long haul. Her case did not go away until the following February, when Mr. Earle tried dropping the case for a lack of evidence. Mr. DeGuerin, however, refused to let the charges be dropped, and the jury exonerated her.

Mr. Earle, who has made a career of pursuing politicians, declined comment for this article.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20051 ... -4125r.htm

This story gets more outrageous with every new fact that's uncovered. Now it turns out that Ronnie Earle (who has been described as the "Elmer Fudd of politics") shopped these phony charges to THREE different grand juries! The third time turned out to be a "charm" for reckless Ronnie, as he finally managed to coax a grand jury into handing down an indictment.

Read all about it in the Austin American-Statesman:

http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/con ... earle.html

As evidence of Ronnie Earle's abuse of power comes to light, the persecution of Tom DeLay may come to a screeching halt sooner than anyone thought:

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's legal team asked Friday for his Texas indictments to be set aside, accusing the prosecutor of misconduct.

DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, alleged in a court motion that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle unlawfully participated in grand jury deliberations when he went to a second grand jury last week to seek a second indictment against the congressman.

DeGuerin also alleged that Earle "attempted to browbeat and coerce" the second grand jury to change its decision not to indict DeLay so there would be no public record of a rejection....

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/07/D8D3F5S89.html

There's a very interesting article in the Washington Times today about Ronnie Earle. It paints a portrait of a petty and vindictive serial abuser of power, whose transgressions are not limited to partisan persecutions. Earle once attempted to prosecute an 11 year old girl for capital murder, going so far as to publicly annouce that the girl was guilty before the case ever came to trial (he was in the midst of a reelection campaign at the time, not surprisingly).

The girl was questioned about the crime, without the benefit of having an attorney or even her parents present. She confessed. Earle later defended this rather dubious (at best) interrogation and confession, saying that at the time the girl was not officially a suspect, nor was she under arrest.

The girl was subsequently convicted, but the trial judge overturned the verdict and ordered a new trial. Earle prosecuted the girl again, obtaining a second conviction, which was overturned after an appeals court ruled that her confession could have been coerced and was definitely improper. Having no evidence against her but the dubious "confession," Earle was finally forced to dismiss all charges.

Reckless, petty, vindictive, and driven by political motives. That's Ronnie Earle in a nutshell, no pun intended.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20051 ... _page2.htm

AUSTIN - Travis County prosecutors admitted Friday they lack physical proof of a list of Republican candidates that is at the heart of money-laundering indictments against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and two of his associates.

The list is key to prosecutors being able to prove that corporate money that could not be legally spent on Texas candidates was specifically exchanged at the national level for donations that legally could be spent on Republican candidates for the Texas House.

Indictments against DeLay, Jim Ellis and John Colyandro state that Ellis gave "a document that contained the names of several candidates for the Texas House" to a Republican National Committee official in 2002 in 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 prosecutors said Friday in court that they only had a "similar" list and not the one allegedly received by then-RNC Deputy Director Terry Nelson. Late in the day, they released a list of 17 Republican candidates, but only seven are alleged to have received money in the scheme.

A lawyer for Ellis said prosecutors' inability to produce the list mentioned in the indictments is on par with the tactics used by U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the communist witch hunts of the 1950s.

"I'll tell you what I think about this list. In the 1950s, a man named McCarthy claimed to have a list of 200 communists in the State Department, and he didn't," said J.D. Pauerstein, a lawyer for Jim Ellis, the director of DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority. "They (prosecutors) don't know what list they're talking about, even though they specify it in their indictment."...

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3397339

If Ronnie Earle's plan was to run his own career and at the same time guarantee Rep. DeLay's reelection (which would have been a safe bet regardless), he could hardly be doing a better job of it.

It turns out that the judge assigned to this case is a democrat activist. And not just any kind of democrat activist, but a certified member of the loony left. This judge is on record as having given money to MoveOn.org.

Naturally, DeLay's attoryney has filed a motion asking the judge to recuse himself. The judge refused to do so, although he did refer the motion to another judge to decide whether or not the request should be granted.

Persecutor Ronnie Earle vows to fight this motion, since he obviously would like nothing better to have a blatantly partisan judge overseeing this case. Apparently he realizes that he needs all the help he can get if he hopes to bring his little witch hunt to a successful conclusion.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/2 ... byznt.html

Tom DeLay's lawyers succeeded today in getting a new judge to oversee his trial. It was absurd to think that a judge who had donated to radical lefitst causes such as MoveOn.org could be allowed to preside over such a politically charged case. Common sense and decency prevailed today, and justice will itself prevail once Rep. DeLay is ultimately acquitted.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/01/D8DJT11G1.html

Today, the judge overseeing the trial of Rep. Tom DeLay dismissed the trupmed up conspiracy charges. While the trumped up money laundering charges remain, the "case" against the Republican icon is crumbling. Ultimately, he will of course be exonerated. And ultimately, the democrats will still be a bunch of bitter losers.

Just a reminder to all about keeping your posts on topic, particularly in threads which by their nature are prone to be more rancorous.

Thank you.