Posted on 03/22/2006 3:59:47 AM PST by Ninian Dryhope
Congressman says Travis County DA is prolonging the case until after the fall elections
AUSTIN - U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay said Tuesday the Travis County district attorney is just playing politics by prolonging his criminal case and will drop the "bogus" charges after the fall election.
An appellate court panel today is hearing the prosecutor's motions to overturn a lower court's decision to drop some of the charges.
"Unfortunately, Ronnie Earle is trying to drag this out over a period of time," DeLay said. "In fact, I imagine he's trying to drag this out past the November elections and then drop the charges like he did before."
Hutchison charges dropped
DeLay was referring to the criminal charges Earle brought against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in 1993 and then dropped as her trial began in 1994.
"This is all politics, we all know that," DeLay said. "We've been ready to go to trial since November and we're looking forward to getting into trial because these charges are bogus, they're frivolous and politically motivated."
Earle could not be reached for comment.
A three-judge panel of the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals today is hearing Earle's motions to overturn a December ruling by Senior State District Judge Pat Priest that DeLay could not be tried on conspiracy to violate the state election code in 2002 because it wasn't a crime until 2003.
Earle's appeal brought DeLay's criminal case to a grinding halt and left the Sugar Land Republican in a legal limbo that permanently cost him his post as U.S. House majority leader.
"It's been almost 120 days that this frivolous appeal has been before the third circuit, and I would hope they come to a speedy resolution on a matter that would I think take a first-year law student an hour to make a ruling on," DeLay said.
Earle contends the conspiracy statute applied to all felonies in 2002 so it should apply to the election code. He claims the Legislature in 2003 added specific language about conspiracy to the state election law just so there would be no misunderstanding. He is asking the appeals court to reinstate the charges.
Validity of indictment
A grand jury originally indicted DeLay in September on conspiracy to violate state election laws banning the use of corporate money in campaigns for office.
After DeLay's lawyers raised questions about the validity of that indictment, Earle's prosecutors went to a second grand jury and got DeLay indicted on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to engage in money laundering.
The charges stem from corporate money raised by the DeLay-founded Texans for a Republican Majority, TRMPAC. The committee sent $190,000 in corporate money to the Republican National Committee, which returned a like amount to Republican candidates for the Texas House.
Winning a GOP House majority was critical to DeLay's plans to push congressional redistricting through the 2003 Legislature.
Houston Chronicle reporter Armando Villafranca contributed to this report.
This prosecutor should pay a penalty for delaying this action and continuing to play politics and then dropping the cases.
It would seem there must be a law somewhere in the Texas lawbooks that would punish a DA who intentionally harrased anyone for political purposes. I hope Delay sues this character in civil court and takes everything he owns ,
Let's make it a two-fer. Delay and Scooter on the same day.......
Houston Chronicle is factually in error.
I'd chip in for that one.
At least this whole thing showed me what the character of Republicans is these days.
Dems don't desert their people the way Republicans do. He was taken down because he was the rare one doing an effective job as a Republican.
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