With Texas judge Pat Priest imposing a sentence of three years in prison on former House majority leader Tom DeLay, it is not an exaggeration to say that this is the culmination of an undeserved, unjustified, and unconscionable act of political persecution. It is the result of an abusive prosecution that exemplifies the drive to criminalize politics and to make the ordinary processes of raising and spending funds for political campaigns a crime.
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The man who should be on trial in Texas is Ronnie Earle, the unethical Travis County prosecutor who went after DeLay as part of a political vendetta fueled by his bizarre belief that business owners’ political activities are “every bit as insidious as terrorism.” (Tell that to the almost 3,000 Americans who were murdered on 9/11.) How do we know Earle believes that? Because he had a documentary film crew follow him around as he pursued the indictment of DeLay, producing a film called The Big Buy that Earle used to try to win higher office in Texas. He used the same unprofessional and unethical tactics to prosecute Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (her case was thrown out by a judge) and former Texas attorney general Jim Mattox, who was acquitted and won reelection.
This was a phony prosecution from the very beginning. It took Earle three separate attempts before he could get a case that a grand jury or a judge would not throw out. Then he got DeLay indicted for behavior that was perfectly legitimate under campaign-finance laws, identical to the kind of fundraising done by practically every campaign committee and candidate in the country.
DeLay solicited $155,000 in contributions for a political-action committee he headed and contributed $190,000 to the Republican National State Election Committee (RNSEC); the RNSEC then contributed $877,000 to 42 state and local candidates in Texas in the final two months of the 2002 campaign, including seven recommended by DeLay. For this routine act of campaign financing, DeLay was charged with and convicted of criminal money laundering, a crime defined by knowingly using the proceeds of criminal activity. Since these contributions were all legal, the most basic element of this supposed crime could not be met; nonetheless, Earle drove the case forward in one of the most outrageous prosecutorial abuses of criminal law that we have seen in decades. Meanwhile Earle indicted a number of companies, including Sears, that had made perfectly legal contributions to DeLay’s PAC, and then sold those companies dismissals in exchange for donations to one of his favorite charities.
Government prosecutors have a duty and an obligation to enforce the law judiciously and fairly. The power they are given by society is immense, and so is the damage they can do when they abuse that power. Ronnie Earle has showed in case after case that he is a self-serving ideologue, a crass opportunist who uses his power as a prosecutor to pursue his own political and ideological agenda.
Earle’s miscarriage of justice may be even worse than the infamous Mike Nifong’s attempt to railroad innocent Duke University lacrosse players into prison in 2006 to solidify his reelection. At least Nifong was unsuccessful and paid the price for his misconduct. But unless a Texas appeals court throws out this outrageous prosecution, and the unjustified conviction and sentence, Earle will get away with his appalling abuse of power. And Tom DeLay will end up in prison not because he broke the law, but because he was so effective a politician that his opponents were willing to do anything to bring him down.
And that prosecution was the Democrats' top target in 2006 that gave us four years of new government regulations that have killed this country under Pelosi-Reid-Obama.
I am very happy to see someone finally defending Tom DeLay. Some of my favorite conservative writers think he is guilty. I think he is not and I agree completely with your take on the matter - that his prosecution is nothing more than a political vendetta. Indeed it is Earle who should be going to jail, not DeLay.
"No worries"- except the cost of the legal defense for a frivolous suit, and the waste of taxpayers' dollars for a public official to abuse his power. I would say Ronnie Earle has been and is a disgrace to the legal system, but much of that system is a joke anyway.
No worries? How about the expense of Tom Delay to defend himself against a charge brought on by an abuse of power by Ronnie Earle? I would say that Earle is a disgrace to the legal system, but actually he is just one more example of how that system is abused by some lawyers. Elliot Spitzer comes to mind.
No worries? How about the thousands of dollars DeLay has had to spend to defend himself? Will the state of Texas or Ronnie Earles reimburse DeLay for these expenses? No worries? Next time MikeB it could be you!
Oh, wait, this article is supposed to be taken SERIOUSLY? I thought it was a JOKE. Wow, you radical authoritarians want to overturn the rule of law for everyone in your right-wing tribe, don't you? One particularly arrogant and really incompetent crooked politician manages to get himself convicted - a tall order these days, but DeLay pulled it off - and you reflexively defend the guy because he had an (R) beside his name. It's lawless attitudes like that which are destroying America - encouraged, of course, by foreigners like Rupert Murdoch and Alwaleed bin Talal who are playing you all for the fools you are.
This is an important example of Democrats criminalizing conservative politics. The Democrats enjoy a major advantage in this area because they can bring prosecutions of Republicans in venues where the jury pool is overwhelmingly Democrat. It is no accident that Tom Delay was tried in Austin, Texas; nor was it an accident that Scooter Libbey was tried in Washington, D.C. No Republican can get acquitted in these jurisdictions no matter how innocent. The flip side is that it is very hard to get convictions of Democrats in these venues. This is very important because these prosecutions are designed to decapitate the GOP and discourage conservatives from getting involved in politics.
I think the Congressional GOP should correct this abuse by enacting a federal statute that gives the accused the right to choose the venue for prosecution in a campaign finance or otherwise politically flavored federal prosecution. Let them try to convict the next Scooter Libby in the U.S. District Court for Utah. Texas should pass a similar state law.
The Texas AG or Texas Legislature should start a criminal case for professional misconduct and/or impeachment of the prosecutor. I happen to think this should be a more common occurrence - think of Eliot Spitzer and the other prosecutors in NYC.
"I think he is not and I agree completely with your take on the matter"
Not to pick on you Jack, but the important thing (and the thing we need to have faith in), is that a jury of his peers were forced to listen to all the evidence and THEY think he was guilty. Both sides had the chance to present, and Tom probably had some big guns on his side, so he was well represented. There are a lot of things that we have a reason not have faith in, but the jury judicial process isn't one of them in this case. Tom's lawyers wouldn't have been pushed around like a less skilled lawyer might've been, so he likely got to present everything he had a right to present.
I don't know Austin, and perhaps it's more liberal than some parts of Texas (as cdscott1968 seemed to imply). But it's likely still pretty conservative in the big scheme of things, and so those peers weren't by any means NY dems out for conservative blood.
Anyhow, I'm liberal myself, but I think plenty of liberal politicians should be tried as well. It's harmful to the system when they get away with corrupt acts like this. The looming threat of consequences for shady deals are a big part of the checks and balances of our public figures, and if they're gone, what's left?
Anyhow, cheers all.
(If anything in the message came across as snarky, it was solely a limitation of textual communication.)
PatrickC, let me give you a brief description of Travis County, and particularly Austin, Texas. It is called the San Francisco of the Southwest, the most popular bumper sticker (before the Obama stickers) was "Keep Austin Weird." It continually elects Lloyd Doggett, one of the most liberal Congressmen in D.C. It is a big blue hole in a sea of red. The only other counties in Texas that would come even close to being as liberal would be some of the border counties.
Ronnie Earle is a political hack who saw the handwriting on the wall, didn't run again, and campaigned for his second in command. He hated DeLay (and I do mean HATED) and is a close friend of Robin Rather, Dan Rather's daughter, and somethink he was deeply involved in the phony Bush military records. He made a campaign promise that he would bring down DeLay, and those should have been introduced as evidence of a vendetta.
DeLay, and his attorney, had faith in Texans to render a fair judgement. They failed to take into consideration the temperment of Austin, Texas.
But there will be blowback from this, and hopefully DeLay's verdict will be overturned by a appellate court. This was a witchhunt by Earle, and later his successor, to do nothing but destroy DeLay. Hopefully, the people of that district will vote this judge out next election. Read some of the court transcripts and you will see blatant examples of judicial misconduct.
If you are are jolly over this decision, I can honestly say you are for no other reason that political bent. But hey, as long as a Republican goes down, so what if the reasons were wrong?
I am chiming in here with "Central Texan." Austin, the seat of the state capitol and one of the state's big universities, is horribly (or wonderfully, I guess, depending on your POV) liberal. I lived there myself for a number of years.
So when Patrick C. says, "I don't know Austin, and perhaps it's more liberal than some parts of Texas ... But it's likely still pretty conservative in the big scheme of things, and so those peers weren't by any means NY dems out for conservative blood," well, he's half right. He doesn't know Austin.
And if I recall, some of the rules involved were changed in a later legislative session; meaning that some of his activities would have been a no-no today. HOWEVER, at the time he did what he did, it was perfectly acceptable under the rule of law in Texas. I need to double-check my facts, but I recall something of this effect from research a few years back when the witch-hunt began. Summary? His actions were legal, and the verdict should be overturned.
