Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Hanging Tom DeLay ... Or Not

On the very same day that the Washington Post lets us know -- huge surprise, this! --that the U.S. House Ethics Committee, with equal numbers of Dems and Repubs, is deadlocked on doing ANYTHING about ethics complaints against Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay ... the Austin American-Statesman comes out with news that three top DeLay lieutenants have been indicted in Travis County, Texas, for money-laundering and for soliciting and accepting illegal corporate donations to a DeLay political action committee.

Maybe the House Ethics Committee could, like, read those indictments, if they had even a modicum of curiosity about Mr. DeLay's recent activities.

The money-laundering charges, incidentally, are felonies. Seven corporate donors and an alliance of nursing-home companies also were indicted.

"The indictments came after almost two years of an investigation into Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee that DeLay created to elect a Republican majority in the Texas House of Representatives. The scope and number of indictments stunned defense lawyers, who had expected only a handful of charges."

So, is the Travis County District Attorney content with taking down just the henchmen, or does he have the goods on the head snake?

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