Unethical DeLay

About those illegal corporate contributions...

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Texas Speaker Tom Craddick quickly distanced themselves from a GOP political action committee this week after a state grand jury indicted three of the group's consultants.

But a Houston Chronicle review of documents from civil lawsuits and government databases involving Texans for a Republican Majority show DeLay and Craddick were kept abreast of the PAC's operations and were personally involved in the committee's fund-raising activities.

...In the wake of the felony indictments returned Tuesday, though, DeLay and Craddick describe a hands-off relationship with TRMPAC.

"I had no idea what they were doing," Craddick said.

DeLay said, "I was not involved in the day-to-day operations of TRMPAC ... I raised money for them and made appearances for them when they had fund-raisers."

...A flier for [a] fund-raiser featuring Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris listed the "TRMPAC Board" as being headed by DeLay. "Corporate Contributions are Welcome."

...DeLay's daughter and personal political consultants ran TRMPAC. DeLay was on the board of advisers and was the featured guest at fund-raisers.

Houston Chronicle article

But he had no idea that they were involved in anything felonious. How could you imagine he did? Like Oil Slick Dick who had no idea his companies were crooks. Paul O'Neill, the Secretary of the Treasury that BushCo fired, pushed to create laws that would make CEOs legally accountable for the activities of their companies, but as you can imagine, corporate contributors lobbied that out of existence.

The grand jury — under the direction of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat — indicted John Colyandro, TRMPAC's executive director; Jim Ellis, the executive director of DeLay's leadership committee Americans for a Republican Majority; and Warren RoBold, a fund-raising consultant for both political committees. Eight corporations also were indicted.

The indictments accuse the men and corporations of violating a state law banning the use of corporate or labor-union donations to influence the outcome of a candidate's election. They have denied wrongdoing.

Frankly, I'm sure they don't see anything wrong with what they did.

And it's very handy for DeLay that four of the ten members of the ethics committee investigating his illegal fund-raising are recipients of thousands of dollars from ARMPAC, the parent of DeLay's political action committees, and the fifth Republican on the committee is the chairman.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.