Should DeLay resign

Isn't it a gas that Bush tells all of us he's bringing democracy to the Middle East?

0 Replies

Another interesting turn of events for Bush and Company; the democracies of the Middle East are electing the very people Bush is against. ROFLMAO

0 Replies

cicerone imposter wrote:

Another interesting turn of events for Bush and Company; the democracies of the Middle East are electing the very people Bush is against. ROFLMAO

You are obviously overjoyed at that. Why?

0 Replies

I'm laughing so loud, because this president and his henchmen doesn't get anything right, but the American People voted him for a second term. When some people are in pain, we laugh.

0 Replies

Carry on then.

0 Replies

Quote:

House Ethics Standstill Stalls DeLay Decision

Committee May Be Inactive for Months

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 9, 2005; Page A01

A dispute between the parties has shut down the House ethics committee for the second time this year, and lawmakers said that it could be months -- and perhaps next year -- before the panel will decide whether to examine the activities of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) or others accused of violating restrictions on lobbying and travel

.
Story at.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/08/AR2005060802366.html?referrer=email

How does it make you feel when you realize that these are the people who make our laws.

0 Replies

While the GOP destroys democracy in the US.......

0 Replies

cicerone imposter wrote:

While the GOP destroys democracy in the US.......

AMEN!

0 Replies

The Delay Saga continues

http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=141121

Quote:

U.S. House Majority leader Tom DeLay is still under investigation in Austin.

Prosecutors say they're continuing their investigation of illegal fundraising practices at Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC), one of DeLay's political action committees.

On Tuesday, two of DeLay's former associates appeared in Travis County Court. John Colyandro and Jim Ellis asked a district judge to dismiss the cases against them.

Colyandro and Ellis were fundraisers for TRMPAC. Both men face felony charges of laundering funds raised through the PAC and accepting illegal campaign contributions.

Colyandro's attorney Joe Turner said parts of the state's election statute is unclear and infringes on free speech rights.

"It's vague, it's overbroad, it makes things illegal which should be legal, which are protected constitutionally," Turner said.

Colyandro's money laundering indictment has to do with a $190,000 check with his signature. Prosecutors say it was sent to the Republican National Committee and then back down to seven Republican House candidates during the 2002 election cycle, which prosecutors say is a violation of state election laws.

Turner argued that according to state laws money laundering can only apply to cash transactions, not checks.

District Judge Bob Perkins disagreed.

"In my opinion, funds do include checks," Perkins said. "I've had several fundraisers while running for judicial office and all the funds I've always received have been checks."

I love the "It ain't money if it ain't cash" argument. If that is the best they can do this is a slam dunk for the prosecutor.

0 Replies

There is an old saying. When you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas.

0 Replies

What's the delay in his resignation?

0 Replies

FEC Finds Misreporting by DeLay Committee
FEC Finds Misreporting by DeLay Committee
By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer
Thu Aug 11,11:28 PM ET

A political committee founded by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay may have improperly spent unregulated "soft money" on get-out-the-vote and fundraising activities, the Federal Election Commission says. A DeLay attorney said Thursday the money has been reimbursed.

Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee "potentially" spent about $203,000 in soft money from its nonfederal account to pay for the political activities and administrative expenses, the FEC found in an audit.

ARMPAC has federal and nonfederal accounts that shared certain expenses. The federal account could contain only money subject to federal contribution limits and from individuals and PACs, or hard money. The nonfederal account was not subject to federal regulation and could accept soft money, which can include contributions from corporations and labor unions.

The FEC audit also found that DeLay's committee failed to report more than $300,000 in debts owed to 25 vendors and reported its finances erroneously. DeLay attorney Don McGahn said debts were paid but not in the time prescribed by the FEC. The expenses included eight fundraising events, two each held at Four Streams Golf Club in Beallsville, Md., and a resort in Humacao, Puerto Rico, and others in Orlando, Fla., California, New York and Hackberry Creek Country Club in Irving, Texas.

"Everything in this audit is accounting issues," McGahn said. The committee has filed amended reports and taken other steps recommended by the FEC, the audit said.

Using soft money to cover a bigger share of overhead could give a candidate or party an unfair advantage by freeing up hard money to use for direct candidate support.

The Federal Election Commission has the option of pursuing enforcement action against Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee, but the report didn't indicate whether it would. Bob Biersak, an FEC spokesman, said an audit is not an enforcement action. He said similar audits of political committees have been done on occasion.

The audit was posted on the Web site of PoliticalMoneyLine.com, which tracks political fundraising and spending. Its contents were made available earlier to ARMPAC officials, who filed corrected reports in May and June.

A spokesman for DeLay referred calls to his attorneys.

ARMPAC's executive director, Jim Ellis, was indicted in Texas in connection with a separate DeLay-related committee, Texans for a Republican Majority. In that case, Ellis is charged with money laundering in connection with contributions for state legislative campaigns in 2002. DeLay has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the case. He has called the investigation a political witch hunt.

District Attorney Ronnie Earle declined comment. ARMPAC records were subpoenaed by the grand jury for the investigation.

Watchdog groups said the FEC audit raises questions about whether similar activities were occurring with the Texas committee, which also had an account for limited, individual contributions and one for corporate, unlimited money.

"Is this the tip of the iceberg? We don't know," said Tom Fitton, president of Washington-based Judicial Watch.

The groups also questioned whether ARMPAC soft money assisted Texas campaigns. ARMPAC contributions totaling $24,000 were given to Texas Republican legislative candidates in 2002. The checks sent to them included DeLay's name and title as the PAC's chairman.

DeLay attorney McGahn scoffed at attempts to link the audit to the Texas case.

"They are reading an esoteric, minutiae question about overhead ratios that has been concocted by the FEC, that is no longer the law ... into a whole 'nother entity in Texas. And I'm going to wear tinfoil on my head so they can't hear my thoughts," McGahn said. "This has nothing to do with the Texas situation."
------------------------------------------------

On the Net: PoliticalMoneyLine.com: http://www.tray.com

Federal Election Commission: http://www.fec.gov

0 Replies

JACK ABRAMOFF INDICTED FOR BANK FRAUD
JACK ABRAMOFF INDICTED FOR BANK FRAUD IN CONNECTION WITH PURCHASE OF SUNCRUZ GAMBLING SHIPS

REP. BOB NEY DIRECTLY ASSISTED INDICTED LOBBYIST WITH PURCHASE - RECEIVED DONATIONS FROM ABRAMOFF AND KIDAN SHORTLY THEREAFTER

STAFFERS FOR REP. DELAY AND SEN. BURNS TOOK JUNKET ON SUNCRUZ

Washington, DC - Earlier today, lobbyist Jack Abramoff was indicted for bank fraud in connection with his 2000 purchase of the SunCruz gambling ships from Greek millionaire Gus Boulis. To finance the purchase, Abramoff and his partner Adam Kidan were required by Foothill Capitol to put up $23 million in cash to secure the loan. Abramoff and Kidan signed sworn documents, provided to Foothill Capitol at closing, attesting that they had paid Boulis the $23 million. In fact, Abramoff and Kidan never paid Boulis and by October 2000, Boulis was threatening to sue. In January 2001, Boulis did file suit, but in February 2001, he was murdered in an unsolved gang-land style homicide.

Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) also played a role in the deal. On March 30, 2000, Ney inserted a statement into the Congressional Record, criticizing Boulis and his management of SunCruz. On June 30, 2000, Kidan, Abramoff, Abramoff's wife and Michael Scanlon, a former DeLay aide, each made $1,000 contributions to Ney's re-election campaign. On October 26, 2000, Ney again inserted remarks about SunCruz into the Congressional record. This time he praised the leadership of the new owners claiming that Kidan had a "renown reputation for honesty and integrity." In fact, Kidan had been disbarred in New York after misappropriating money in a business deal and he had ties to organized crime figures.

In addition, shortly after Kidan and Abramoff purchased the ships, Abramoff leased a corporate jet to ferry congressional staffers down to Tampa for the Superbowl and to gamble aboard a SunCruz ship. Among those on the trip were Tim Berry, then Rep. Tom DeLay's chief of staff, DeLay's former deputy chief of staff, Tony Rudy, and two staffers for Senator Conrad Burns.

Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington stated, "An indictment is just the first step in the ever-evolving scandal involving Abramoff and the GOP Leadership. Now, Rep. Ney has some explaining to do. Given that Rep. Ney knew enough about SunCruz, Adam Kidan and Gus Boulis to insert comments about them in the Congressional Record, the House ethics committee should find out what else Rep. Ney knew about Abramoff's illegal activities."

CREW has details on Members of Congress dealings with Abramoff on www.jackinthehouse.org.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit, progressive legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions. CREW drafted the complaint against Tom DeLay, filed by former Congressman Chris Bell, for which DeLay was admonished last year.

For more information, please visit www.citizensforethics.org

0 Replies

Auditors Find Violations by DeLay's PAC
August 12, 2005
Auditors Find Violations by DeLay's PAC
By DAVID LEONHARDT
New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 - A political action committee run by the House majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, broke election law by paying expenses from the wrong account, an audit by the Federal Election Commission has found. By doing so, the committee effectively increased the amount of money it could spend on Congressional races in the 2002 campaign.

The committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, or Armpac, should have paid $203,000 in administrative expenses for 2001-2 with money designated for federal campaigns, known as hard money, rather than with other, soft-money funds that it actually tapped, according to the audit, released this week.

Under the law at that time, Armpac was required to cover 93 percent of its administrative expenses with hard money because 93 percent of its campaign spending was directed at federal races. Instead, the committee split its administrative expenses evenly between hard-money and soft-money accounts, leaving itself more to spend on federal races.

The audit also found two accounting violations, which Republicans and Democrats agreed were less significant than the administrative-expense issue. But it did not find any illegal contributions, generally considered the most severe of election-law violations.

Mr. DeLay's fund-raising activities have previously come under scrutiny both in Washington, where Democrats have called for an ethics inquiry centering on his dealings with lobbyists, and in Texas, where a state prosecutor has obtained indictments charging three of his allies with funneling corporate money to legislative campaigns.

On Thursday, Democrats and Republicans reacted in predictably different ways to the findings on his political committee.

Donald F. McGahn II, a lawyer for Armpac, said the violations were honest mistakes and largely technicalities. The committee has since repaid the $203,000 in question, Mr. McGahn said, by transferring it from a federal-election account to an inactive soft-money account.

"There's no substantive violation," he said. "There's none of the stuff that's big trouble. It's very minor and specific."

Jan Baran, a leading Republican election lawyer not involved in the matter, called the violations a kind of sloppiness and said the audit showed "no smoking guns of intentional illegality."

Democrats, however, said the amount of money involved in the violation concerning the different accounts made it look like more than a simple mistake.

"This wouldn't rank as a simple case of someone stepping slightly over the threshold," said Robert Bauer, a Democratic lawyer at the firm of Perkins Coie. "It's someone stamping the door down."

Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a group with Democratic ties, said the severity of the violations could be seen in the official list of the report's recipients: the auditors sent a copy to the general counsel of the Federal Election Commission.

"This is a big deal," Ms. Sloan said.

Mr. McGahn, the Armpac lawyer, noted that the campaign finance law passed in 2002 eliminated the type of soft-money accounts involved in this case. So a similar error cannot happen again, he said.

Democrats, on the other hand, said a change in law did not excuse an earlier violation of it.

As for the two accounting violations, Armpac misstated the amount of cash it held in a bank account and failed to record $322,000 in debts, mostly to direct-mail companies. The committee has since amended its reports to address those violations.

As is standard, the election commission said it reserved the right to fine Armpac, or not to fine it.

Philip Shenon contributed reporting for this article.

0 Replies

Tom DeLay indicted
Tom DeLay has just been indicted in Travis County, Texas on one charge of criminal conspiracy.

BBB

0 Replies

Are criminals allowed to serve in our federal government? LOL

0 Replies

c.i.

cicerone imposter wrote:

Are criminals allowed to serve in our federal government? LOL

House rules require that he lose his leadership position. I'm unsure about losing his house seat before he is convicted.

DeLay is toast---at least until he's able to wiggle out of it.

BBB

DeLay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe
Sep 28 12:37 PM US/Eastern
WASHINGTON

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader.

0 Replies

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050928/ap_on_go_co/delay_investigation

Quote:

DeLay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago

WASHINGTON - A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader.

DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.

The indictment against the second-ranking, and most assertive Republican leader came on the final day of the grand jury's term. It followed earlier indictments of a state political action committee founded by DeLay and three of his political associates.

The grand jury action is expected to have immediate consequences in the House, where DeLay is largely responsible for winning passage of the Republican legislative program. House Republican Party rules require leaders who are indicted to temporarily step aside from their leadership posts.

However, DeLay retains his seat representing Texas' 22nd congressional district, suburbs southwest of Houston.

DeLay has denied committing any crime and accused the Democratic district attorney leading the investigation, Ronnie Earle, of pursuing the case for political motives.

Democrats have kept up a crescendo of criticism of DeLay's ethics, citing three times last year that the House ethics committee admonished DeLay for his conduct.

Earlier, DeLay attorney Bill White told reporters, "It's a skunky indictment if they have one."

As a sign of loyalty to DeLay after the grand jury returned indictments against three of his associates, House Republicans last November repealed a rule requiring any of their leaders to step aside if indicted. The rule was reinstituted in January after lawmakers returned to Washington from the holidays fearing the repeal might create a backlash from voters.

DeLay, 58, also is the center of an ethics swirl in Washington. The 11-term congressman was admonished last year by the House ethics committee on three separate issues and is the center of a political storm this year over lobbyists paying his and other lawmakers' tabs for expensive travel abroad.

AT LAST!

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

DeLay steps aside
Tom DeLay just announced he would "temporaly step aside" from his House Leader position.---BBB

Daily Kos Blog
9/28/05

A Travis County grand jury today indicted U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on one count of criminal conspiracy, jeopardizing the Sugar Land Republican's leadership role as the second most powerful Texan in Washington, D.C.

The charge, a state jail felony punishable by up to two years incarceration, stems from his role with his political committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, a now-defunct organization that already had been indicted on charges of illegally using corporate money during the 2002 legislative elections.
-------------------------------

Wed Sep 28th, 2005 at 09:03:27 PDT
Daily Kos
By Laylan Copelin, the reporter at the Austin American-Statesman who wrote the above, has had the best sources on this story for the past couple of years.

I'd still wager we won't get indictments of DeLay, but this is an incredible turnaround from a few months ago, when it seemed DeLay would escape indictment based on a jursidictional issue.

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's leadership post is on the line today as a Travis County grand jury is expected to consider indicting DeLay on conspiracy charges, several lawyers familiar with the investigation said.

The charges would stem from the DeLay's role in using corporate money in the 2002 elections. State law generally bans corporate money from campaign activities.

"I wouldn't have expected this a year ago," one Austin criminal defense lawyer said. "It's quite a turnaround if it happens." [...]

DeLay had appeared to escape criminal scrutiny as early as last year when Travis County prosecutors concluded that they did not have the jurisdiction to pursue election code violations against him. Under the law, only DeLay's local district attorney, a Republican, had jurisdiction, and he expressed no interest in trying to topple the second most powerful Texan in Washington.

But a conspiracy charge would fall under the criminal code, not the election statute that bans corporate money from being spent on a campaign.

That tactic is what defense lawyers fear -- and would give Travis County prosecutors jurisdiction over DeLay [...]

In recent days, the broad-based investigation has focused on one particular transaction that could tie back to DeLay.

In late September 2002, Colyandro, the executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, sent a blank check to Ellis, who is DeLay's primary fundraiser in Washington.

According to the money-laundering indictment returned against those two, Ellis was accused of having the Republican National Committee launder $190,000 of corporate donations into noncorporate money to seven Texas House candidates, including Austinites Jack Stick and Todd Baxter.

If the grand jury takes action against DeLay, several lawyers expect it be related to that transaction.

As late as Tuesday, Travis County prosecutors were interviewing Republican National Committee staffers about their roles in the transaction.

0 Replies

Should DeLay resign

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know