September 29, 2005

DeLay DeFense?

Hatched by Dafydd

On Special Report with Brit Hume last night, Hume mentioned something that he had been told by (I believe) the Republican National Committee (RNC) about the Tom DeLay case. Now, I'm not a lawyer (though I do play one sometimes when I want to get a good deal on a used car); but if this is true, it sure sounds like a great defense to me.

DeLay appears to be accused of setting up a conspiracy to collect funds from corporations, launder them somehow through the RNC in Washington D.C., and then illegally distribute them to Texas candidates in defiance of Texas state law. I say "appears" because the indictment obtained by Ronnie Earle from a Travis County grand jury is so vague that Tom DeLay might actually stand accused of mopery with intent to gawk, for all I know.

As best I can gather, Travis County, TX District Attorney Ronnie Earle claims that the Texas Republican Majority Political Action Committee (TRMPAC), set up by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and others, collected money from corporations, sent the money to the RNC, which sent it to the RNC-State Elections Committee (RNC-SEC), which then (charges Ronnie Earle's grand jury) sent it back to Texas into the coffers of various Republican candidates for state and federal office. It's evidently against the law in Texas for corporate money to be used in political campaigns. DeLay, of course, denies the charges.

Assuming I have the gist of the indictment, here is what Brit Hume says the RNC told him. They have, they say, two separate accounts (simplifying here); or possibly the separate accounts are at the RNC-SEC; Brit wasn't quite clear. Since some states allow corporate money to be used in elections while others don't, the RNC says it (or else the RNC-SEC) set up two separate accounts: one for corporate contributions, the other for hard-money contributions from individuals.

He said that they said (hearsay alert!) that what actually happened was that TRMPAC collected the corporate donations; it sent them to the RNC, which trasferred them to the RNC-SEC, which put them in the corporate account. The money in that account was then distributed to states that had no laws against corporate or out-of-state money being used in elections. Then, to get money to the Republicans running in Texas, the RNC-SEC took funds from the separate, hard-money (individual-donor) account and used those to contribute to campaigns of various politicians in Texas.

Tom DeLay himself, who made an unexpected appearance on Special Report, said that after setting up TRMPAC, he had no involvement in the day-to-day financial transactions, and that he never entered into any agreement about how or where the money would be collected or spent. But leaving that aside, I have a question for any lawyers out there in Lizard Land: assuming "arguendo," as you guys like to say, that what Brit said was true -- that there were two separate accounts, and all the money going from the RNC-SEC into Texas came from the hard-money account (and ultimately from individual donors subject to the $2000 limit), and the corporate money collected in Texas went into other states that had no prohibition against corporate funds going to political campaigns -- assuming that is all correct, would there be any violation of the law underlying this supposed "conspiracy?"

And if there is no underlying criminal act, can a conspiracy charge stand? Can a person be convicted of "conspiring" to perform a legal act?

Finally, Brit said the RNC said that they informed Ronnie Earle of this accounting method, with the two separate accounts; if Earle obtained the indictment by not telling the Travis County grand jury about this accounting arrangement, or by telling them in such a way that they didn't understand what was being done, could Earle himself be in any trouble for abusing his prosecutorial authority?

I won't deny that I hope he would, since I think he's a partisan sleazeball. But I certainly admit I have no clue; this is way too much into the legal weeds for my poor brain, wasted for too many years on logic and mathematics to comprehend all this lawyer stuff.

Free legal opinions, anyone? Please mention if you're a lawyer. I'm particularly going to solicit comments from some lawyer bloggers with whom I have some vague contact... and if none shows up, won't that be embarassing!

(If anybody wants to answer more fully in his own blog, please leave me a trackback so I can go read it. The trackback URL for this post is http://biglizards.net/mt32/mt-tb.cgi/63. Thanks!)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 29, 2005, at the time of 2:12 AM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: RBMN

Another rather important point:

"Laundering," or not, if the Texas candidates on the receiving end know only that this money came from an RNC fund, how does that buy any influence?

The above hissed in response by: RBMN [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2005 10:09 AM

The following hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist

Free legal opinions, anyone? Please mention if you're a lawyer.

i’m no Lawyer, but have been a Cop and later a Convict, and did invent the “Karmi Hold” (its basically biting into the opponents nose and drowning him by blowing his blood into his lungs).

Travis County, Texas is the key here (in my humble opinion). Dan Rather’s daughter lives in that area. Dan gave fund raising speeches in that area. Dan’s forged documents came from that area. BTW, Dan’s daughter is a major Democrat activist there or was until the forged documents were discovered. More research needs to be done in and on that whole Travis County area...i mean, its as ‘IF’ they don’t like you (for whatever reason), then they will use any means necessary in order to get rid of you – sorta like Nazi Germany did. Travis County may be the “Queen Bee” of the Democrat Party, or even its “Achilles Heel”.

Dafydd...note also the similarities of redistricting or districting or reapportionment (Attention: your “California Linking Rings” post here) that California and Texas once shared prior to Texas breaking the Democrat’s strangle hold. The Democrat Party cannot afford to lose California, and i suspect that Travis County has a ‘Strong’ contact...never mind, i’m starting to babble a tad too much.

KårmiÇømmünîs†

The above hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2005 2:38 PM

The following hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist

OOOPS!!! Sorry about that double post...i would delete the 2nd one, if i could.

Anyway, check out Wikipedia's defining of Dan Rather:

1) Rather was born in Wharton, Texas
2) "The Wall Within"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather

"The Wall Within" was a CBS News "special", and was "hosted" by Dan back in 1988. A "B. G. Burkett" shows up...

Is the infamous Bill Burkett, of the Killian documents kin to this "B. G. Burkett"?

That took less than 30-minutes to find...how much more is out there?

KårmiÇømmünîs†

The above hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2005 3:16 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

KarmiCommunist:

I deleted the duplicate post for you.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2005 3:53 PM

The following hissed in response by: antimedia

I'm from Texas. I can assure you that Ronnie Earle is no partisan. He's a vindictive little man who will take any politician he dislikes to court, regardless of their party affiliation. He's done it to Republicans, yes, but he's done the exact same thing to Democrats as well. He'll indict anyone he disagrees with, just to embarrass them, even if he has no case at all.

But he's not a partisan.

The above hissed in response by: antimedia [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2005 9:06 PM

The following hissed in response by: Beldar

Gotta respectfully disagree with antimedia. Earle is hyper-partisan. That's just not inconsistent with him also being a cannibal who will gleefully devour Democrats as well.

The only effective sanction against Earle's consistent prosecutorial overreaching would come from the voters of Travis County (a/k/a Berkeley on the Colorado), who so far have seen fit to return him to office again and again despite his magnificent losses in so many huge cases. I attribute this to their constant hunger for melodramatic/comedic theater in Austin, a hunger that is unsatisfied in large part because the Texas Constitution only requires the Legislature to be in session for 180 days every two years.

Nevertheless, having said the above about Earle with confidence and gusto, I have no opinion about whether Rep. DeLay will or won't be proved guilty. I'm neither a fan of his, nor of the law under which he's been indicted (whose constitutionality is somewhat suspect and whose wisdom is extremely suspect). But I'm willing to accord him his presumption of innocence.

The above hissed in response by: Beldar [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2005 11:00 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Beldar:

Gotta love them lawyers: through rain or sleet or dark of night, they're always there to dodge the issue!

Counselor, the question before the body is whether, if we assume arguendo that the setup was as depicted above, would that be a reasonable defense to the Texas state law under which the Hammer was indicted?

At the astronomical hourly rates we're paying you, you ought to give us a real opinion, wise guy!

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 30, 2005 12:53 AM

The following hissed in response by: gingeroni

"Right Side of the Rainbow" isn't a lawyer but he is Texan and he has a good review of the indictment and the law at
http://rightrainbow.com/archives/2005/09/on_delay146s_in.html

From his reading of the law, no crime occurred.

The above hissed in response by: gingeroni [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 30, 2005 12:00 PM

The following hissed in response by: cdquarles

All I have to say is that you can't get justice from a bad law.

The above hissed in response by: cdquarles [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 1, 2005 12:51 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

One post edited to remove offensive reference.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 1, 2005 11:46 PM

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