[
According to the November 24, 2010, Austin American-Statesman story headlined DeLay convicted of laundering corporate money into political donations, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has been convicted of money laundering. He will be sentenced on December 20 and could receive a prison sentence in excess of five years. This article contains a good trial timeline of the violations going back to 2001.
In Texas it is against the law for corporations to make donations to political campaigns. So to evade the law, DeLay formed a political action committee which solicited and received corporate donations intended to support Texas campaigns. Those donations were sent to the Republican National Committee (RNC) in Fantasyland-on-the-Potomac which then turned them around and sent the exact same amounts right back to Texas campaigns. It was legal for DeLay’s PAC to send the money to the RNC. It was legal for the RNC to send money to Texas campaigns. But it was illegal for the two actions to be so obviously associated as to clearly be an effort to do indirectly that which Texas law prohibited DeLay’s PAC from doing directly. Stupid is as stupid does.
As Gary Cobb, lead Travis County prosecutor said, “We thought the citizens of Travis County would see this case for what it was: a corrupt politician who was caught violating the laws of the state.”
This guy did every underhanded, dirty dealing, corkscrewing, backstabbing thing hunamly possible while in office. He deserves no less on the punishment side of things. He needs to become the poster-boy for what goes around, comes around.
He is an example of “the ends are justified by the means”. He screwed with so many people of honesty and integrity to corrupt the system I can only hope he gets a nice long stretch at “Club Fed”.
Comment by paul — November 26, 2010 @ 9:14 am
I think the most appropriate word would be encore!
Comment by Dan — November 26, 2010 @ 9:17 am