Posted on 10/05/2005 9:46:43 AM PDT by flattorney
Maybe Travis County DA Ronnie Earle was just being careful when he persuaded a new grand jury to issue another indictment of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay as its first order of business. But even without the heated rhetoric of DeLay's lead attorney, Houston's Dick DeGuerin, it made some Democrats nervous. "This is a mess," DeGuerin said Monday, while Earle was silent on his reasons. "This looks like the Keystone Kops."
Even-handed mishandler ---------------------- Money laundering is a first-degree felony with a penalty intended for drug kingpins: a maximum of life in prison. Earle included some new evidentiary detail in the new indictment, but like the first one, it gave no specifics about DeLay himself.
The resulting impression is of a quickie indictment that recalls Earle's earlier history. I'm not just talking about Earle's mishandling of the case against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. I'm talking about the fact that he has been an even-handed mishandler. In fact, he's mishandled more cases against Democrats than against Republicans, probably for the simple reason that Democrats were in power for most of Earle's nearly 30 years in office.
Torpedoed his own case ---------------------- Not that Earle hasn't had successes. He won a five-year prison sentence for a Democratic Supreme Court justice convicted of forgery and lying to a grand jury. And he won convictions, if on minor charges, against a Democratic state treasurer and a speaker of the state House of Representatives. All told, at least 10 Democrats and three Republicans either pleaded guilty or were convicted of corruption charges brought by Earle.
Hutchison is the best-remembered of Earle's failures, partly because it's the most recent (1994) and partly because DeLay supporters beat it like a drum. To this day, nobody has authoritatively explained why Earle torpedoed his own case against Hutchison when, at the start of the trial, the judge said he would rule on the admissibility of evidence as the trial progressed, not in advance.
But even before Earle suffered that setback, he had let two very large Democratic fish get away. He investigated then-state Comptroller Bob Bullock in 1978 for use of state equipment and planes for political purposes but didn't get an indictment. At least part of the reason apparently was because a judge ruled he gathered evidence with a grand jury subpoena rather than with a search warrant — a technique that dogged him in the Hutchison case.
Then there was the reportedly dismal performance of his office in the 1985 bribery trial of then-Attorney General Jim Mattox. Mattox, a liberal Democrat, was acquitted by a jury and re-elected by the public.
But it is the Hutchison case that causes the most nervousness. DeGuerin represented Hutchison as he now represents DeLay. DeGuerin twice persuaded the court to throw out indictments against Hutchison before she went to trial, once because of an ineligible grand juror and once because of poorly drawn indictments. DeGuerin will fight hard for similar results this time, and Monday's quickie indictment did not instill a sense of sure-footedness by Earle.
"...my name is Earle, and I have a whole lotta stuff to answer for..."
My favorite part about Earle's "quickie indictment" on Monday is "...it made some Democrats nervous"
"DA Ronnie Earle Blew More Dems in Cases"
Better title?
Dick DeGuerin will beat incompetent Ronnie Earle like a borrowed mule. There is no case here against "Teflon Tom". 2-bit Ronnie Earle is totally out of his league. My brother is one of the top criminal attorney's in Texas and he is a life-time conservative Democrat. Even he said Earle has no case here and bought himself a LOT of trouble over this DeLay indictments. He also said a number of very major Democrat donor "money cows" in Texas, are furious over this DeLay indictment and Earle's total incompetence.
The Texas Public Integrity Unit should be made a part of the state's AG office, and headed by an independent non-partisan attorney general.
Elected partisan Democrat hack DA Ronnie Earle is not competent to run this office.
"He also said a number of very major Democrat donor "money cows" in Texas, are furious over this DeLay indictment and Earle's total incompetence."
Of course they are mad. Earle's ability to indict corporations and politicians for acts that are both legal and done by both parties and all sides is sowing distress and confusion everywhere in the money-raising circles.
Earle is a total loose cannon.
Earle included some new evidentiary detail in the new indictment, but like the first one, it gave no specifics about DeLay himself.It went from having "new evidence against Delay" to "new evidentiary detail" not specific to Delay.The resulting impression is of a quickie indictment that recalls Earle's earlier history.
In other words, there is no reason at all to indict Delay again by the same offense. None.
I don't recall anything more blatantly unfair coming from a corrupt DA. Perhaps, my memory is bad.
Earle belongs in jail.
His tactics smack of those of a police state.
But .. saying Earle prosecuted DEMOCRATS is really a mis-nomer. According to DeLay, at the time Earle was doing that, there were no republicans in the TX state legislature. There were only CONSERVATIVE-DEMOCRATS. People who later left the dem party and switched to the repub party.
Don't know whose incompetence is worse--LA Blanco & NO Nagin or Travis Cty DA Earle's. Sad state of affairs!
>>>The Texas Public Integrity Unit should be made a part of the state's AG office, and headed by an independent non-partisan attorney general.<<<
You hit the nail on the head.
Secondly, it was obvious that Earle had a "pocket" Grand Jury on the second indictments. Any good criminal attorney will tap dance all over Earle and the Judge in the case over this matter.
Third, DeGuerin said he sent a letter to Earle, withdrawing DeLay's agreement to waive the Statute of Limitations for 30 days BEFORE the second indictments was handed down.
Fourth, Earle's entire case against DeLay is over ONE transaction, that does not specifically, with direct stated facts, nail DeLay. These 2-bit DeLay indictments are not like the major Enron criminal indictments where there was hard prima facia evidence through-out the individual indictments.
All DeGuerin has to do is find ONE technical defect in these indictments, on the ONE single transaction, to blow them out of the water. Based on the facts, as I understand them, DeGuerin should have an easy go of it.
It has to be ronnie earle, he has had decades of practice.
Who oversees a county District Attorney (other than the voters)? What office would have jurisdiction to charge one with abuse of power or prosecutorial misconduct, or something like that?
The Democrats' other goal was to establish in the public's mind that any money DeLay raised and gave out is tainted, and therefore any other House Republican (i.e. most of them) who took money from DeLay is corrupt. I'm afraid they have been pretty successful there too.
However, none of this is going to matter in the long run. Democrats are Stuck on Stupid here; they still believe that if you bring down the person the party will fall apart, and all you need is a bogeyman to run against and people will vote for you. They have learned nothing in 10 years since they got Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston. The House Republican majority will survive the loss of Tom DeLay, and by next year's elections he will be such old news that they will look ridiculous trying to use DeLay as an issue against other Republicans.
I would guess the State AG or even a Federal Attorney would.
The people who believe that crap wouldn't have been Delay supporters in the first case...so who is harmed? In my opinion, Delay and his lawyeres aren't hitting back nearly hard enough. They need to hammer Earle AND go after the democrats in congress who are running their mouths as if this were a legitimate charge.
"But .. saying Earle prosecuted DEMOCRATS is really a mis-nomer. According to DeLay, at the time Earle was doing that, there were no republicans in the TX state legislature. There were only CONSERVATIVE-DEMOCRATS. People who later left the dem party and switched to the repub party."
That's mostly correct, but some of his targets (Jim Mattox) were liberal Dems.
To be more exact, Ronnie Earle was a protoge of Ann Richards, who went after her enemies - both Bob Bullock and Jim Mattox were competitors at different times to Ann Richards.
Earle abounds in the double-standard.
Ann Richards misused her phone for political purposes just as Kay Hutchison did, in the early 1990s. basically making fundraising calls on the office phone. But Ronnie tried to make a major case out of it for Kay Hutchison on this penny-ante issue, but didnt touch Ann Ricards at all. Then he built a case against Kay that was bogus, but it blew up in front of a judge. (As the Delay case may well as well, it is so thin on facts.)
And just a few weeks back Earle helpfully let the Travis County Judge, Sam Biscoe, off on a DWI case. Charges were dropped due to an explanation that Biscoe's refusal to take a breathalyzer test and his wobbly performance in front of a cop were really the result of an obscure diabetes condition. Biscoe's a Democrat.
Ronnie Earle's a joke.
MAJOR PING!
Thank you for that enlightenmnt.
It helped a great deal.
I hope you continued reading, because post #21 gave some more great info.
Did everybody hear the audio on Rush today - one of the grand jury members who voted for indictment said in an interview that HE HAD ALREADY MADE UP HIS MIND BEFORE HE WAS ON THE GRAND JURY .. HE DIDN'T EVEN NEED TO LISTEN TO THE EVIDENCE.
Early has dug to the bottom of the barrel to find only loyal dems who already hated DeLay in order to perpetrate his attack. This guy needs to be challenged.
LOL!
What a load of crap! Earle went after conservative Democrats and political opponents in his party, there was no widespread attack on everyone.
Check post #21 - there is even more good info.
>>>Did everybody hear the audio on Rush today - one of the grand jury members who voted for indictment said in an interview that HE HAD ALREADY MADE UP HIS MIND BEFORE HE WAS ON THE GRAND JURY .. HE DIDN'T EVEN NEED TO LISTEN TO THE EVIDENCE.<<<
I need a copy of this audio where that ass was making this statement. Anybody have a audio link, like when DeLay was on Rush's show. I'll check Rush's website also.
I'll make sure the audio gets to DeGuerin's office in Houston. It will help DeGuerin to get the Judge to throw out the indictments.
This is Ronnie Earle's problem. He thinks he, and his pocket GJ buddies, can use the media to slam DeLay and continue to leak this case. Problem is he can not without getting his case thrown out and the Texas AG's office to rain down on him.
I see a lot of the frustration comments towards Earle's abuse of office, but the fact is nothing could be done about it until he indicted DeLay. Now this clown is fair game to destroy. Earle should have retired when had the chance. This guy is totally out of his league, as he will painfully learn. Earle has about as much of a chance to drag down DeLay as my dead Grandmother.
Also please remember, re all the comments the indictments are going to hurt Teflon Tom and his DC base, blah, blah. Heard the same thing when Earle tried to drag down Kay Bailey Hutchinson. That situation not only didn’t hurt KBH, net-net it helped her and brought KBH many supporters and financial donors she would not have had otherwise, and improved her position in DC. Will be the same for DeLay.
I mean, a lot of people don’t like DeLay because all they have heard is how corrupt he is. They didn’t know how sharp, direct, and focused Teflon Tom was until he recently hit the TV talk show news circuit on these indictments. Tom has been very impressive on TV and a lot of people have taken notice. It was a bold move, that can be a criminal attorney’s nightmare, but DeLay made the right call with all the heavy personal media exposure. A lot of people also don’t know how many Bills TD has gotten passed that helped the elderly, poor, and middle class.
It kills me how the media ignores politics that were legal at the time. Eighteen States have laws like Texas re no corporate contributions to individual campaigns, and both Reps & Dems did these hard money/soft money swaps via PAC organizations. What? the Ronnie Earle’s of the world going to indict and arrest the majority of Congress. Never happen.
Let’s be honest, Federal politics is a totally corrupt legalized Mafia. Good luck to these Bozo’s that think they are going to clean it up. At least with DeLay he gets things done in Congress instead of spending all his time, like many Congressional Democrats, figuring out ways to line his personal pockets 24/7.
"I need a copy of this audio where that ass was making this statement. Anybody have a audio link, like when DeLay was on Rush's show. I'll check Rush's website also."
But you may already have it, since you said you were going to check Rush's web site.
Transcript and audio can be found here, on Rush's web site:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_100505/content/stop_the_tape.guest.html
Well, Sarce, when even the Austin UnAmerican-Spaceman can't find a way to avoid running stories like Prosecutor reveals third grand jury had refused DeLay indictment, Austin's deeply blue voters might start to pay attention.
When the Earle of Injustice becomes more of a liability and an embarrassment than a valued-if-sleazy "mechanic," the dwindling Texas Dem minority will toss him out.
On second thought, maybe not--this story is not AAS's lead, and I don't see it getting national attention...
>>But you may already have it, since you said you were going to check Rush's web site.<<
Thanks, no I hadn't gone to Rush's site yet.
CHECK THIS OUT.
That audio was just played again on Fox's Brit Hume's news show. It was the Grand Jury Foreman, (1st GJ - that 76 y.o. William Gibson guy) and he said on an Austin radio program, that he already had his mind made up to indict DeLay even before the Grand Jury investigation.
Gibson, said he was upset over Texas Association of Business (TAB)(1) ads “papered all over town” (Austin) years back and that was the reason he already had his mind made up before the GJ convened to indict Teflon Tom.
I’m not believing that backwoods hick said this on a public radio broadcast! DeGuerin has to love it for getting the indictment thrown out. Just keeps getting better, lol.
(1) TAB and Texans for a Republican Majority, the political committee created by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, shared information and worked together on the ads. In some instances, the political committee spent corporate money to identify Republican-leaning voters in the legislative districts targeted by TAB.
Yeah, I heard the tape on Rush's show, and I couldn't believe it, either. What a moron! He was upset because these ads were "telling people how to vote". WHAT POLITICAL AD **DOESN'T** TELL PEOPLE HOW TO VOTE???
That's why they advertise! They try to persuade, but they have no way to force people to vote a particular way.
I'm just glad the guy is out there, and he's talking! This is GREAT grounds to get these indictments thrown out!
Here's from the audio they played on Hume's Fox program, from the Austin radio interview with this GJ Foreman:
KLBJ host: The Texas Association Business ads. ..
Grand Jury Foreman William Gibson: All this all came out way before I was on the grand jury, these (unintelligible) were in your paper, in Austin paper, everyone else's paper, they flooding the market around here. But those were way before I ever went on the the grand jury and my decision was based on upon those (the TAB ads,) not what might have happened in the grand jury room...
KLBJ host: Oh, ok, Your mind was made up after you learned about the ads.
William Gibson: Right, those ads, way back. telling people how, so-called freedom of the speech deal, and I looked at it and they are just telling people go vote for that person, go vote for that person,
KLBJ Host: So they didn't have to persuade you in the grand jury with any evidence, you already..
William Gibson: That was already public knowledge there and way back (unintelligible)...they stated their positions and I could state my position by saying I don't like that.
heh.
Great Post
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497438/posts
LOL, you need to post that to every DeLay thread.
FYI, DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, (one of the top criminal defense lawyers in the country) is a self-described yellow-dog Democrat who regularly votes in Democratic primaries.
Since the beginning of the 1988 election cycle, DeGuerin has contributed $15,800 to Democratic candidates, including $1,000 in 1996 to former Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas), who plans to challenge DeLay for his seat next fall.
DeGuerin also contributed $1,000 in 2002 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is pinning its hopes for the 2006 election on DeLay’s legal problems and their potential to taint all GOP House candidates.
In an interview, DeGuerin described himself as being “kind of raised in Austin and Democratic politics.” His father served as Lyndon Baines Johnson’s administrative assistant when the former president was a member of Congress. DeGuerin’s father later worked for the Johnson administration in the Commerce Department.
“I don’t know that I agree with [DeLay’s] politics, and I don’t have to,” DeGuerin said. “What’s happened to him is political, and I don’t agree with trying to affect the ballot box with the jury box, and that’s what Ronnie Earle is trying to do.” DeGuerin said he made his political persuasion “very clear” to DeLay and his supporters, and he said DeLay is comfortable with it.
The Institute on Money in Politics found eight trades of soft money for hard money, all between the Democratic National Committee and the Texas Democratic Party. In two trades in 1998, the DNC sent $172,500 in soft money to Texas, and the state party sent back $150,000 in hard money. In two trades in 2000, the DNC sent $150,000 of soft money and received $125,000 in hard money. And over a series of four trades in 2002, the DNC gave the state party $255,000 in soft money, and the Texas Democratic Party sent $225,000 in hard money to the DNC.
The report by the Institute also shows that in the 2002 election cycle the Texas Partnership PAC chaired by former House Speaker James E. "Pete" Laney (2002 Form 990, Internal Revenue Service), transferred over $350,000 (though the Institute's report does not mention the recipient of those funds, it is clear from Texas Ethics Commission records that most, if not all, of those dollars went to the Texas Democratic Party as a pass through to Democratic candidates for Texas House of Representatives).
http://www.tx4tx.org/archive/Earle%20Should%20Refrain%20From%20Unethical%20Pretrial%20Statements%20-%20Janelle%20Shepard.htm
DeLay Attorney Accuses Ronnie Earle of Grand Jury Shopping
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497500/posts
A blind hog could have figured that one out.
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