The details behind DeLay’s dilemma

November 11, 2005

About a month ago, Tom DeLay’s lawyer went public with a claim that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle offered DeLay a plea bargain deal whereby the lawmaker could plead guilty to a misdemeanor and save his job as House majority leader, but DeLay and his legal team rejected the offer.

The disclosure didn’t really make a lot of sense at the time. Part of DeLay’s political defense insisted that Earle is on some kind of partisan vendetta and was desperate to force DeLay from his leadership post. If Earle offered DeLay a deal, and a misdemeanor plea could have helped him keep his job, why didn’t DeLay just take it and end this mess?

The Washington Post fleshed out an explanation in a helpful front-page article today. Apparently, DeLay’s lawyers signaled they wanted a plea bargain — because DeLay incriminated himself pretty seriously during an August meeting with Earle.

At that session, DeLay acknowledged that in 2002 he was informed about and expressed his support for transfers of $190,000 in mostly corporate funds from his Texas political action committee to an arm of the Republican National Committee in Washington and then back to Texas, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be named. […]

DeLay said he was also generally aware of a plan to shift money between Texas and Washington. It called for pulling together $190,000, sending it up to Washington and getting the same amount sent back to Texas for state election campaigns.

According to matching accounts provided separately by the sources, DeLay was asked whether such a deal happened and responded yes. Asked if he knew beforehand that the deal was going to happen, DeLay said yes. Asked how he knew, DeLay said that his longtime political adviser, Ellis, came into his office, told him it was planned and asked DeLay what he thought. DeLay told Earle that he recalled saying, “Fine.”

From that point on, DeLay had a real problem on his hands. For all his public denials about his involvement in the money-laundering scheme, here was DeLay admitting to a prosecutor about his role and understanding of the transactions, effectively making him part of the conspiracy to circumvent election law.

The WaPo has all the details of the process. It certainly answers a lot of questions.

So if he was basically busted and his laywers wanted to strike a deal why didn’t he take it? A guilty plea to a misdemenor that kept him in the leadership would not be much worse than a scolding from the House Ethics Committee (something he is famimlliar with). If the man basically confessed why in the world would he want to go to trial?

  • Jeez, these aren’t really all bright, are they?

    How can the Democrats keep losing to this collection of nitwits? I guess outside of sheer viciousness, they have nothing.

  • I think the following passage from the WP article is the most interesting.

    DeLay, meanwhile, had decided to try to repair his reputation with a public defense, in which he accused Earle of “politics at its sleaziest” and gave his own account of the movement of funds between Washington and Texas

    […]

    Over the weekend of Oct. 1 and 2, Earle asked his staff to collect transcripts of everything DeLay had said publicly. Armed on Monday morning, Oct. 3, with what he considered these fresh admissions by DeLay of his knowledge of the deal, Earle persuaded a new grand jury at its first meeting to return two new indictments for money laundering and conspiracy.

    This shows that Earle has learned from the Hutchison failure. Getting this out publicly certainly will give DeLay’s lawyers, if not DeLay, pause about a strategy which includes public attacks on Earle. This was a genius move.

    Speaking of genius, it also shows that DeLay really isn’t one. He’s just mean and ruthless.

  • For esthetic reasons, I’m reposting my last comment.

    I think the following passage from the WP article is the most interesting.

    DeLay, meanwhile, had decided to try to repair his reputation with a public defense, in which he accused Earle of “politics at its sleaziest” and gave his own account of the movement of funds between Washington and Texas,
    […]

    Over the weekend of Oct. 1 and 2, Earle asked his staff to collect transcripts of everything DeLay had said publicly.     Armed on Monday morning, Oct. 3, with what he considered these fresh admissions by DeLay of his knowledge of the deal, Earle persuaded a new grand jury at its first meeting to return two new indictments for money laundering and conspiracy.

    This shows that Earle has learned from the Hutchison failure. Getting this out publicly certainly will give DeLay’s lawyers, if not DeLay, pause about a strategy which includes public attacks on Earle. This was a genius move.

    Speaking of genius, it also shows that DeLay really isn’t one. He’s just mean and ruthless.

  • Sounds like a slam-dunk case to me.

    He didn’t know it was illegal, so it’s not a crime!

    Thanks, Tommy, for clearing all that up!!

    LOL!

  • Before everyone gets too excited here, unless Texas law differs substantially from that of New York and the Federal Rules of Evidence, which strikes me as quite unlikely, statements made during plea bargain negotiations are not admissible against a defendant at trial. DeLay could have spilled every last detail of the scheme and Earle can’t use it against him. This may explain some of the motivations behind DeLay and Earle’s actions, but it adds nothing to the criminal case against DeLay.

  • Here in LA “plea bargain” comments are “fair game” and can be used against a defendant at trial. These comments are protected in civil matters, not criminal. I think the Fed Rules provide that exception as well.

  • Federal Rule of Evidence 410 (d) states that “any statement made in the course of plea discussions with an attorney for the prosecuting authority which do not result in a plea of guilty or which result in a plea of guilty later withdrawn” is “not… admissible against the defendant who made the plea or was a participant in the plea discussions.”

    But, again, I don’t know what Texas law says on this issue.

  • Isn’t there the ability under the federal rules to use the statement, for perjury type purposes, in the event of a contrary statement being made under oath?

  • Yesterday, I posted here about Jack Abramoff’s “charity” and the $25,000 “donation” given to The DeLay Foundation For Kids in 2003.

    http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/5794.html

    According to a NY Times story by Philip Shenon, Jack Abramoff emailed someone about Tom DeLay request’s to Abramoff that he raise money for DeLay through Abramoff’s Capital Athletic Foundation.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/politics/04lobby.

    I have been trying to follow up but Tom DeLay does not make it easy.

    The DeLay Foundation For Kids does not list separate donors on its IRS Form 990s.

    According to the 2004 990, DeLay’s foundation contributed $2,110,448 to the DeLay-controlled Oaks At Rio Bend charity between 7/03 and 6/04. The Oaks At Rio Bend is a project to build 24 foster homes in Fort Bend, Texas.

    Between 7/02 and 7/03, DeLay’s foundation contributed only $134,171 to Oaks At Rio Bend.

    The 990s for Oaks At Rio Bend are not available online`past 6/03.

    Neither the DeLay Foundation nor the Oaks At Rio Bend 990s list a 2001 donation of 50 acres of land valued at $403,000 from the George Foundation of Fort Bend, Texas. However, the George Foundation listed the donation of land in its 2001 990.

    I have a couple of questions.

    If Jack Abramoff raised money for Tom DeLay through Capital Athletic Foundation, how was it passed on to DeLay? According to Capital’s 990s, Abramoff laundered cash through Capital using different Abramoff-controlled entities.

    Was the $25,000 “donated” by Capital Athletic Foundation in 2003 to the DeLay Foundation a disguised political contribution? If so, the cash probably was passed on to DeLay through Oaks At Rio Bend. The rest of the DeLay Foundation’s expenses appear to be reasonable and relatively small.

    But that assumes that DeLay accounts for donations and disbursements legitimately in the DeLay Foundation’s 990s. We already know the foundation is guilty of sloppy bookkeeping, at best, because it did not record the gift of 50 acres of land in 2001. Oaks At Rio Bend did not record any gift of land as of 6/03 from the DeLay Foundation or anyone else.

    According to Oaks At Rio Bend website, 8 of the 24 homes to be built were completed as of August 2005. There is no indication that they were occupied by foster kids, or anyone else for that matter.

    http://www.riobend.org/

    The contractor reportedly is Bob Perry of Perry Homes who provided the seed money for the Swift Boat Veterans of Truth.

    Given that Tom DeLay apparently is willing to misuse funds from a charitable foundation run by Jack Abramoff, I think Mr. DeLay should be making information about his own charities available to the public.

    The list of individual donors to the DeLay Foundation should be made available online as well as the most recent 990s for the Oaks At River Rio.

    And Mr. DeLay should hurry up and tell us about any money he received from Jack Abramoff’s Capital Athletic Foundation. Otherwise, people might start thinking Tom DeLay is a sleazy, crooked politician.

  • Correction to my last post: The George Foundation donated land valued at $403,000 to the DeLay Foundation For Kids in calendar 2003. The DeLay Foundation’s 990s for the years ended 6/30/03 and 6/30/04 do not reflect the donation of the land.

    The George Foundation does not specify where the land was or how much land was donated.

    • Comments are closed.