Early August
Ten days after the August 3 primary, Tom DeLay (Roy Blunt's Washington mentor) and Jim Ellis (the former director of Roy Blunt's Rely On Your Beliefs PAC) are set to appear in a Texas courtroom for a hearing on pending criminal charges.
The felony indictments for DeLay, Ellis and John Colyandro, another associate, were put on hold in 2005 when Ellis and Colyandro convinced a lower court that they couldn't face state charges for money laundering because their dealings were in checks, not cash. (Seriously). However, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously ruled in April that the lower court acted prematurely, and the trial is now set to move forward.
As summarized by The Austin American-Statesman, "the conspiracy charge centers on an allegation that the Texas political committee [Texans for a Republican Majority] sent $190,000 in corporate money to the Republican National Committee which, in turn, donated the same amount to seven legislative candidates in Texas."
In 2005, the Associated Press reported the DeLay and Blunt "orchestrated a [separate] political money carousel in 2000 that diverted donations secretly collected for presidential convention parties to some of their own pet causes." That scheme also involved Ellis, Jack Abramoff and Matt Blunt's gubernatorial campaign.
Ellis was hired to help with Blunt's Washington fundraising as far back as 1999. From 2003-2005, the ROYB PAC paid Ellis roughly $88,000 in fees.
In 2005, Blunt moved $10,000 from his ROYB account to Ellis' legal defense fund. Blunt also contributed $20,000 to DeLay’s Legal Defense Fund, making Blunt the DeLay's largest individual supporter in the country.
Image credit: UPI
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To get up to speed on the charges and upcoming trial, check out this editorial in the Austin American-Statesman:
Let's wrap up DeLay's legal waltz
Thursday, April 29, 2010Thanks to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (which has not always been a place we look for solid logic) we are inching closer to finally getting to a trial of charges stemming from what for all the world looked like a Republican shell game to illegally funnel corporate money to legislative candidates.
The case involved 2002 Texas legislative races that came just before the GOP's unusual and successful attempt to get the 2003 Legislature to redraw congressional districts (drawn in 2001) so they'd be more favorable to Republicans.
After the controversial midterm redistricting, we learned that some of the GOP success at the ballot box in 2002 was buoyed by corporate money that seemed to find its way through the Texans for a Republican Majority political committee to the Republican National Committee and then back to seven GOP candidates in state legislative races.
To be exact, the Texas committee served as the pipeline for $190,000 in corporate money that made the round trip to the Washington-based RNC and then back to the Texas candidates. Also to be exact, Texas law bars corporate contributions to political candidates.
It all added up to an illegal money-laundering scheme used to route the corporate money to the GOP candidates, according to Travis County indictments of then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and aides John Colyandro of Austin and Jim Ellis of Washington.
But in response to the defendants' efforts to get the indictments erased without a trial, the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals ruled the money-laundering charge could not stick because the $190,000 flowed through checks, not cash.
The Texas money-laundering law in place at the time of the alleged offense did not cover transactions made by check, the intermediate appeals court ruled in a 2-1 decision along party lines with the GOP justices in the majority. This ruling (it's not money laundering if you use checks) goes down as a reminder of the differences between the oft-bizarre and logic-twisted world of legalese and the world in which real folks live.
(FYI, the Texas money-laundering law was updated in 2005 to specifically cover transactions involving checks.)
Wednesday's 9-0 ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (an all-GOP court, by the way) undoes the 3rd Court ruling in favor of Ellis and Colyandro (and, by extension, DeLay) and puts the case back on track for a long-overdue trial.
The Court of Criminal Appeals did not rule specifically on the issue of whether the money laundering law in effect at the time covered transactions by check. But the panel — the state's highest court for criminal matters — did say it was possible to read that law to include checks.
More importantly, the Court of Criminal Appeals said the 3rd Court of Appeals acted prematurely in ruling on the check issue. It's a decision, the Court of Criminal Appeals said, that was not ripe for a ruling.
The Court of Criminal Appeals also ruled against the defendants' claim that Texas' ban on corporate contributions to political candidates is unconstitutional because it is overly vague.
Regardless of whose side you're on, this has gone on far too long.
It's not often that we agree with DeLay, who gave up his congressional leadership post as a result of the indictment and later quit the House in 2006 rather than face hometown voters while under indictment.
But here's something on which we are now in lockstep with DeLay. After Wednesday's ruling putting the case back on track for trial, he said in a statement, "I'm very excited after eight long years to finally go to trial and have the truth come out."
We're just as excited. Let's get this thing litigated. It's embarrassing to all that we might not have this 2003 redistricting-?related matter resolved before the 2011 Texas Legislature tackles redistricting again.
