The Trials of Tom DeLay

My former congressman, Tom DeLay, has a problem. Here he has a 3 year prison sentence hanging over his head for conspiracy and money laundering, and now, come to find out, in his appeal to the 3rd Federal Circuit Court of Appeals he  is facing a two to one Democratic to Republican judge panel.

Not because of the luck of the draw, as it turns out.

As it turns out, it is because whenever they asked a Republican justice to sit for the case, they begged off. Republicans have declared the former Congressional majority leader persona non grata and are diving for the weeds.

So Tom is up against a Democrat majority panel.

Not to say that his lawyers aren’t still trying to fight to configure the panel to be more like one to their liking. They continue to badger one Democratic judge for an answer on whether she will recuse herself because she had some fairly negative remarks about DeLay several years ago at a political convention.

My question to the lawyer, though, is whether or not a federal court justice is allowed to exercise their first amendment rights of free speech. This means that 5 of the Supreme Court justices should recuse themselves from any and all cases involving a Democrat.

I wonder how Tom is going to look in those orange overalls.

Throwing Tom Under the Bus

Now I don’t really know why the state legislature just passed a bill that would strip state pension benefits from lawmakers and former lawmakers who are convicted of a felony (or two). Maybe it is spending cuts. After all the state pays into the pension fund and the less the outgo, especially to people who were such bad legislators that they became felons in the commission of their jobs, the better it is for the state’s budget.

Maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t. All I know is that the convicted felons that this article in the Austin American-Statesman names, these guys who would be affected, may not be the only ones who have been in the news of late.

Isn’t Tom DeLay a convicted felon? Convicted of two counts of conspiracy? Tom DeLay is also a former state rep. Isn’t this the kind of guy the bill is meant to cover?

Did the Republican supermajority in the legislature just throw Tom “The Hammer” DeLay under the bus?

Seems like it to me.

So in addition to spending some time in the slammer, it looks like Tom DeLay is also going to be deprived of his state pension.

All the more reason for his high-priced lawyers find some way to get DeLay’s conviction overturned on appeal.

Hot Racking in Texas Prisons: Explaining a DeLay Tactic?

I was wondering the other week why my former congressman, and now convicted felon, Tom DeLay underwent a sudden turnaround in his bid to appeal his conviction for conspiracy and money laundering. Criminal Appeals Court judges in Texas are all, to a man and woman, Republicans.

My thought was that Tom DeLay might think he would get better treatment from his colleagues on the Right. And I thought he thought so, too. But then in a massive turnaround, Tom DeLays’s way, way overpriced lawyer Dick DeGuerin filed a motion for a new trial.

Could it be, I asked myself, that DeLay now believes that his fellow Republicans are ready, willing and able to toss him under the bus? And was Tom ready for an introduction to a bus’s transmission? Maybe not.

But now I know that’s not the case. Now I know the real reason Tom DeLay wants a new trial. Now I know why Tom DeLay has just 5 days ago established a new legal defense fund. A legal defense fund, I might add, that is tax-free to Tom.

Because a new report just released has revealed that if currentTexas state budget cuts go through, the Texas prison system could suffer a whopping 12,000 bed shortfall. You can read about it here.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“The study predicts that if the House draft is approved, Texas could be more than 12,000 prison beds short by 2013 — 8,657 from expected growth in the number of prisoners, and another 4,200 from beds that are to be closed.”

“The Senate draft budget, which cuts less from the prison budget, could leave Texas more than 9,600 beds short, according to the report — 6,774 for predicted growth and 2,860 from beds that are to be closed”

Now the article does not really go on in suggesting what changes will have to be made to relieve this crisis, like increases in the number of paroles, or increases in probation for “victimless crimes,” because, I suppose, no one wants to talk about that. Not yet anyway.

And why bring it up when the answer is so obvious to anyone? Even Tom DeLay can see the writing on the wall. The simple answer is to go the way that former State Senator (and now Idaho Tax Commissioner) Robert Geddes suggested way back in 2006: hot racking.

Hot racking is a practice of saving space, and bunks, on a Navy submarine by having 3 sailors share 2 bunks. While one is on duty, two are asleep. As then Senator Geddes said back in 2006:

“Why does every inmate need his or her own bed?. The military does it all the time”

Indeed they do.

And this is very probably the reason we have a new DeLay tactic in his never-ending quest not to spend one night in lockup.

You never know what kind of critters you might find lurking between the sheets of a Texas state prison hot rack.

Tom DeLay Wants a Mulligan

Oh yes, Tom DeLay, my convicted felon former congressman wants a Mulligan. That’s golf-speak for a “Do Over.” DeLay, you know, plays golf, so I thought that was an appropriate application of the term.

According to UPI, Tom DeLay’s overpriced lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, has filed a motion for a new trial, a motion to set aside the jury’s guilty verdict, and to do it all over again.

In short, Tom DeLay is making it his business to make the cash-strapped state spend even more taxpayer money to put this guy away.

DeGuerin, Tom DeLay’s way overpriced lawyer, said that among other things, there were irregularities in the jury and that the DA had misapplied state law in applying its money laundering law to what Tom DeLay did, which, he said, isn’t even illegal because it’s done all the time.

That last one we have heard before.

A prosecutor for the DA, Steve Brand, who worked the case, said that these were groundless charges.

From UPI: 

“We oppose the motion and we don't think any real legal grounds are alleged to disturb the verdict and accept the motion for a new trial.”

Really, outside of the jury irregularity allegation, there is nothing new under the sun. This was exactly Tom DeLay’s entire defense, not guilty because no crime was committed. The judge and jury, however, disagreed.

DeGuerin argued that when Tom DeLay took $190,000 in corporate donations and gave it to the RNC, who in turn gave exactly $190,000 in campaign donations to 7 GOP candidates for Texas’s state house (whose names were provided by Tom DeLay), well that’s peachy keen. Even though DeLay himself couldn’t directly donate the cash to the 7 candidates because that would be illegal.

But the DA successfully argued that this was a callous disregard for the law, since you can’t take money from your left pocket, place it in your right one, and then say it didn’t come from the left pocket when you make a donation. The phrase, as I recall was “money is absolutely fungible. It’s like beans.” A phrase uttered by Judge Priest.

But the other allegation, the new one, is intriguing. There was “juror misconduct.”

That’s rich, too rich.

As I recall from the trial, there was one juror who kept coming up with off the wall questions for the judge to answer, and Judge Priest deigned not to answer them, telling the jury that they were getting off track. DeGuerin, at the time, saw the confusion as a good sign for the defense.

The juror, it has been speculated, was the schill for DeLay. He was the one trying to get the jury to believe that money laundering only took place by purveyors of illegal drugs, something that never came up in the trial.

If that’s the case, if that is the juror misconduct DeGuerin and DeLay are concerned with, then that’s a real knee-slapper, isn’t it? Tom DeLay’s amazingly overpriced lawyer is using DeLay’s own ideological supporter’s antics as the reason to throw out the verdict.

But somehow, this doesn’t surprise me at all. As a matter of fact it wouldn’t surprise me if this was Tom DeLay’s own idea.

It sounds so much like the stuff he used to come up with when he was in DC.

But you know what? I do have to wonder about this strategy. Getting his verdict overturned on appeal, in a 100% Republican Appellate Court seemed more like a sure thing for DeLay. Obviously, it isn’t. Republicans may just want ol’ Tom to just go away, so this was the next best idea.

Gee, do you think?

Three Years?

Well my former congressman, Tom DeLay, got sentenced to 3 years in the slammer for the conspiracy charge that he was convicted of last November, and another 5 years for the money laundering charge.

Eight Years? Nope. Judge Pat Priest then allowed DeLay to accept a 10 year probation sentence in place of the 5 year prison sentence.

After his perp walk to get in the back of a Travis County Sheriff’s unit where he was driven off for processing including getting a new mugshot that can be seen at right. Tom DeLay is now out on bail pending his appeal.

The smile is still there, but I see that the smirk is gone.

DeLay's top-dollar lawyer, Dick DeGuerin says "This will not stand" and an appeal has already begun. An appeal before a solid Republican criminal appeals court.

It is Texas after all.

Here is video from KXAN:

DeLay to serve three years in prison: kxan.com

DeLay Sentencing is Tomorrow

Tomorrow, my former congressman and now convicted felon Tom “The Hammer” DeLay will be in court again for a sentencing hearing, a hearing that will eventually end in a sentence pronounced for DeLay’s felonies. The crimes were that he knowingly conspired to funnel illegal campaign funds to seven Texas State House candidates, six of whom won in their elections, resulting in the first Republican majority in the Texas legislature since the end of Reconstruction.

Resulting in an unprecedented second time in a decade redistricting that ended with more Texas Republican congressmen in the following year.

It was a bold grab for power that was fueled by a felony.

The prosecution, it is reported, have guaranteed immunity to two former DeLay aides if they should be called to give testimony at the hearing. Dick DeGuerin, DeLay’s top-dollar lawyer has complained in the press that the prosecution “want to rub salt in the wound” of his disgraced client.

There is no word on whether the aides will actually be called, or whether, if called, they will be carrying bags of salt in with them.

The sentencing hearing was to have taken place before Christmas but was postponed because not one of DeLay’s lawyers had a free moment on that day. Others have speculated that this was just a cover story and that the judge was giving DeLay one more Christmas with his family before he goes away for awhile.

My guess is that there has been such wide speculation that DeLay’s conviction will be overturned on appeal that maybe the judge believes that, too. And being a retired visiting judge he may not be of a mind not to go easy on this infamous felon with probation or even a sentence of less than 10 years. With a sentence of 10 or more years, The Hammer goes to The Slammer to wait for the appeals process to proceed.

Then there is the school of thought that any jail time for DeLay is a virtual death sentence and that would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

So what’s going to happen? Here is my scenario: DeLay gets the book thrown at him and gets 10 years. He is then hauled off in cuffs and while sitting there stewing in a holding cell President Obama signs an executive order commuting his sentence to time served.

A move that will piss off just about everybody.

Setting the Standard: Flores Gets 5 Years Probation

So today Democratic State Rep. Kino Flores was sentenced to five years probation in his state ethics charges. The Rep had failed to report income on what was reported to be 10% surcharges on contracts that he was involved with. He is also known to have used his campaign funds for personal benefit. He is one of the few sitting State Reps to be tried and convicted of a felony. Prior to this sentence former State Rep Terri Hodge (D-Dallas) got a year in the federal slammer for a similar offense.

So much for Tom DeLay’s and his lawyers’ assertions that a Republican can’t get a fair trial in Austin.

And doesn’t this now set a standard by which we can expect sentencing on DeLay’s case?

Flores, after all, was ethically challenged in that he took money for services rendered, a reported required 10%, and then didn’t report it on his TEC forms. He was in it for himself, and maybe to augment what is arguably the lowest paid job in the state, that of a part-time citizen-statesman as we like to call them.

But not Tom DeLay. He took not a cent of the TRMPAC money. He had it laundered by the RNC and then saw that it got to the seven State Rep candidates whose districts he had targeted in order to regain the State House majority in 2002.

Paving the way to a twice in a decade congressional redistricting that netted DeLay and congressional Republicans with a larger majority in 2004, and more power for him in general.

In short, where Kino Flores took some kick backs, Tom DeLay subverted an entire democratic process. Where Kino Flores maybe got himself maybe a nice new pair of Nocona alligator skin boots, Tom DeLay enabled what is has ultimately become the sale of congress to the highest bidder.

For what Kino Flores did, he got five years probation and a fine of ten large. Oh, and 400 hours of community service – supposedly without getting a 10% kickback for services rendered.

So the standard is set and you can be sure that there will be people out there taking note of what kind of sentence is handed down to Tom DeLay early next year. There are still those of us who feel that the punishment needs to fit the crime. And now that a five year probation is the punishment that fits Flores’ crime, it seems that some time in the slammer for Tom DeLay would not be out of bounds of what is fair punishment.

121 months. Minimum.

No Early Christmas

Tom DeLay’s lawyers all have some sort of scheduling conflict or another on December 20^th so it seems that unlike the early Thanksgiving I received last week, there will be no early Christmas for me and the rest of us who have eagerly anticipated that date.

The day that Judge Pat Priest was scheduled to pronounce sentence on my former congressman and now convicted felon, Tom DeLay.

Really? All of them?

They all can’t make time to attend the sentencing of their most famous client?

Is this just an attempt to buy some time? I’m always a little suspicious about all things Tom DeLay.

But maybe I should cut Dick DeGuerin a little slack. When it was announced that sentencing would occur on December 20^th, he probably didn’t know to take a look at his calendar then and there and mark it down. Then and there he would have noticed that he had a scheduling conflict and could have mentioned it to Judge Priest.

Then and there.

But then, we all now know that Dick DeGuerin is challenged by calendars. Like how he tripped himself up in court by not noticing what prosecutors did notice when they read his calendar. The calendar that revealed that Tom DeLay had a meeting scheduled with his staffer, Jim Ellis, just after Ellis received the FedEx package containing the check that Tom DeLay knew nothing, absolutely nothing about, for another 3 weeks.

Yep, that’s the ticket. DeGuerin is calendar-challenged.

Tom DeLay on Crime and Getting Justice

I’ve been thinking (again) about what Judge Pat Priest should do in deciding how much, or how little time Tom DeLay needs to serve for his crimes against Texas and democracy in America. DeLay, you know, had a choice between letting the jury come up with a sentence should he be found guilty, and letting the judge do it. Clearly he figured the judge would be more lenient than the jury.

Priest, who is a visiting judge, and not subject to re-election, has a real opportunity here and cannot be retired by an irate conservative electorate. He can make the punishment fit the crime and suffer not a single second of political retribution.

So how should Judge Priest come to a decision? How much is too much or too little?

First, the judge should listen to DeLay’s take on his conviction. There is simply no remorse. He still denies that what he did was a crime. If Priest agrees with the jury, that DeLay went beyond what DeLay calls common practice in DC, then passing a sentence with some teeth in it may just jar the man back to reality.

And second, Judge Priest needs to know just what sort of person he is passing judgment on. And one way to do that is to listen to what he himself says about crime and getting justice in America. So I thought it might be instructive to search through the archives for quotable quotes uttered by Tom DeLay.

Hope it helps.

On a Florida Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore:

“Four justices of the Florida State Supreme Court have distorted the judicial process into nothing more than a mechanism for providing Mr. Gore with the victory he was unable to win November 7. This ruling not only contradicts, but assaults, the most basic principles of jurisprudence.”

ON CBS News decision to reveal documents alleging that Bush received special treatment during his time in the National Guard:

“I understand that people want to protect their sources, but we're dealing with the alleged forgery of government documents to influence a presidential race during war, ... This isn't politics as usual. It's dangerous and possibly criminal.”

On former District Attorney Ronnie Earle:

“Any partisan crackpot district attorney who might want to indict a member of our leadership.”

On being forgiven:

“Forgiveness does not absolve you from consequences.”

On criminal youth:

“The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills.”

“Our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who are evolutionized [sic] out of some primordial soup.”

On judges who make decisions he doesn’t like:

“The judges need to be intimidated. They need to uphold the Constitution. (If they don't behave) we're going to go after them in a big way.”

But perhaps the best Tom DeLay quote is not, in fact words from Tom DeLay at all, They are attributed to Mike Scanlan, Tom DeLay’s former aide. They more than anything should give Judge Priest an idea of what Tom DeLay thinks about crime and getting justice:

“This whole thing about not kicking someone when they are down is BS – not only do you kick him – you kick him until he passes out – then beat him over the head with a baseball bat – then roll him up in an old rug – and throw him off a cliff into the pounding surf below!!!!”

Words to live by.

121 Months

I have revised upward my prediction for Tom DeLay’s sentence which will be pronounced by Judge Pat Priest on December 20^th.

121 Months.

This is critical because as I found out today, if Judge Priest pronounces a sentence of less than 10 years (120 months) in prison DeLay will be entitled to stay free on bond while he appeals his sentence. An appeals process that has already begun at the 3^rd Court of Criminal Appeals. A long drawn out process.

If it’s over 10 years in length off he goes to the slammer.

Off he goes to meet his cellmate, Tyrone.

So while Dick DeGuerin spends years and years in the appeals process, Tom DeLay can spend years and years teaching Tyrone how to tango.

On This Thanksgiving . . .

Let us give thanks to former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle and his steadfast efforts to bring the criminal felon Tom DeLay to justice. I voted for Earle in the primary in his run to be the candidate for Lieutenant Governor mainly based on this righteous work.

And yes we “libruls” are crowing today as we did yesterday because victory is sweet. Nick Lampson, who tried his darnedest to run against DeLay in 2006, except ol’ Tom cut and run earlier that same year had some choice words in an email that he sent to all of his former supporters. Here is an excerpt:

“In the pursuit of power and with disregard for our democracy, Tom Delay damaged Texas and this country in a way that will be felt for years to come. This decision makes it clear that justice can still be delivered and we must do everything in our ability to assure abuses of our electoral system do not happen again.”

So then what about all of his supporters? What are they saying now? The Chronicle tried to get the reaction of Lampson’s successor, Republican Congressman Pete Olson, but all they could raise was the sound of crickets.

Republican Party Chair, Rick Miller, was a little more verbose:

“[I am] surprised and a little bit shocked. But the trial was in Austin and that's not necessarily good territory for Tom and this case.

Looking around for more pro-DeLay statements, however, is a fruitless task. People are curiously quiet and in that there is a message – Republicans are not willing to throw Tom DeLay under a bus - - - yet.

Just about the only other words of support for Tom DeLay came from DeLay himself when he said this to a reporter:

“I'm not going to blame anyone. This is an abuse of power. … and I still maintain that I am innocent. The criminalization of politics undermines our system.”

And yes, Tom is not alone in professing his innocence. Texas state prisons are full of men and women who all maintain that they are innocent. But in that last sentence DeLay almost gets it right. But here is what he should have said to get it completely and exactly correct: The criminals in politics undermine our system.

So in the appeals process, let’s just see if that is still true.

DeLay Gets Hammered: Guilty on Both Counts

Guilty, Guilty, Guilty

My former congressman Tom “The Hammer” DeLay now has a felony conviction on his criminal record. Just minutes ago the jury found Tom DeLay guilty of money laundering and guilty of conspiracy. For these crimes, Tom DeLay faces life in prison.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“He faces a possible sentence of 5-99 years in prison and a maximum $10,000 fine on the money laundering charge, and 2-20 years in prison and a possible $10,000 fine on the conspiracy charge.”

How the jury went from being dumber than a bag of hammers asking the judge for a definition of “money fraud” to brilliant rocket scientists for seeing the truth in DeLay’s crimes, I’ll never figure out but I now have something to be thankful for tomorrow.

Now I don’t know if the judge will actually sentence DeLay to some time inside, I think it would be totally appropriate though. But whatever he decides it won’t be bad enough unless he also sentences DeLay to write personal letters of apology to every retired teacher in America who has been denied some or all of their social security, money that they worked for, because he sat on the bill to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision year after year.

My prediction: 5 years, out in 2. I’ll take whatever I can.

“It is as expedient that a wicked man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physician; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine.”

-Plato

Money Fraud

In the money laundering trial of Tom DeLay a lot of stuff was presented to 12 people whose job it was to put it all together in some semblance of order and then come to a decision on whether a law has been broken.

That’s a tall order for 12 people who are probably unaware of how this case has raged on for 5 years now (or they would never have been allowed on the panel). But now we see that the jury, or maybe just one juror, one confused juror, one confused and brain-addled juror, one confused brain-addled but vocal juror, wants a term defined for them that defies definition because it really isn’t a term at all.

The jury wanted Judge Pat Priest to define for them the term “money fraud.”

Money fraud.

So I googled it. And no, there is no standalone term money fraud. 

There are all sorts of fraud. There’s mail fraud, there’s election fraud, but there is no such thing as money fraud.

The judge was a little put out by the question it seems. It appears that the jury has left the trail and has decided to try its own case, coming up with new terms like money fraud in the process. So it comes as no surprise that the judge sent back to them this rather tersely worded reply:

“I'm afraid you may be getting away from the decisions you must make.”

Gee, do ya think?

This may turn out to be the most anticlimactic trial whose pre-trial positioning I have been following for 5 years now. We finally get to trial and it finally goes to the jury only to find out that the jury is dysfunctional. Probably because of one lone juror.

I smell a rat.

Confusion Reigns Supreme in the Jury Room

So the jurors who are now engaged in determining if Tom DeLay is guilty of money laundering and conspiracy seem to be confused. This is obvious to me in the nature of their questions sent out to Judge Pat Priest.

Question: “Can it constitute money laundering if the money wasn't procured by illegal means originally?”

That’s two negatives in the sentence so I will translate:

“Can it constitute money laundering if the money was procured by legal means originally?”

What?

Does someone think that money laundering takes place only with illegally acquired money? Did someone completely miss the point? Is someone simply confused?

Dick DeGuerin hit the nail on the head in his evaluation of the question:

“It shows the confusion. ... There was no crime, It's a very good sign”

I’ll say. Confusion reigns supreme in the jury room.

They’re so confused that they even asked the judge the same question again worded in another way.

It seems that while we have 12 jurors deciding DeLay’s fate, they seem to have half a brain to share between them.

Well at least Tom DeLay is truly getting a trial judged by his peers.

The Jury Now Owns Tom DeLay

The defense rested last week and the prosecution and defense wrapped up with their final arguments in the money laundering trial of former Dancing With the Stars contestant Tom DeLay today.

And oh, yes, former congressman.

Hopefully soon-to-be former free man.

But I have my doubts. Judge Pat Priest, who appeared to be more of a help than a hurt to the prosecution gave the jury too little latitude in deciding whether a conspiracy existed with Tom DeLay one of the conspirators.

In his charge to the jury, Judge Priest said this:

“Likewise, participation in a conspiracy cannot be proven merely by the fact that a person knew of a conspiracy and was associated with or in the presence of persons involved in the conspiracy.”

Well that pretty much was the prosecution’s case. That Tom DeLay knew of the conspiracy beforehand. Knew about it and did nothing.

It’s just like saying that if you know that your best friend or co-worker is conspiring to kill his wife, then does it, and you do nothing to prevent it, that makes you maybe morally culpable, but not guilty of participation in the conspiracy.

It’s a fine line, and Judge Priest definitely crossed it.

It is also reported at the Chron that half the jury wore black today on the final day of the trial. While the hope is that the jury was dressing for Tom DeLay’s funeral, it could also be that they were dressing in mourning of the death of modern democracy.

I sure would if I were on the jury.

Witnesses Who Didn’t Testify at Tom DeLay’s Trial

The defense rested last Thursday in the money laundering trial of Tom DeLay, my former congressman, without fanfare or farewell. I was somewhat startled at the paucity of witnesses who were offered up to rise to the defense of DeLay. But judging from the colossal blunder of Dick DeGuerin last week in offering up evidence that only served to cook Tom’s goose a little more thoroughly than the prosecution meant to, perhaps the less said the better.

But there were two witnesses that I was mightily expecting to see on the stand before the defense rested, and neither of them showed up.

Who are these promised witnesses? Tom DeLay and God.

Tom DeLay won’t speak in his own defense. Now I know DeLay (well, not really, but I know someone who does) and I know that this is not his idea at all. Tom DeLay is all about shooting his mouth off. It is at the very core of his being. Heck, they even put a reporter on the stand to give testimony to a 96 second interview outside the courtroom earlier. Testimony to verify that Tom DeLay was again shooting his mouth off about how he could have prevented the RNC from giving the funds to his seven named State House candidates.

And didn’t.

No, this was strategy. DeGuerin finally realized that the less said in this trial in the defense of DeLay, the better.

But why didn’t Tom get his good ol’ buddy God to testify? He said he would. He did. He said that when he gave his farewell speech in the House back in June of 2006. This, among other things were said in that vast rambling speech that can be read here:

“Here on this floor, I have caught and thrown spears of every sort. Over the course of 22 years, I've probably worked with and against almost everyone in this chamber at least once. I have scraped and clawed for every vote, every amendment, for every word of every bill that I believed in my heart would protect human freedom and defend human dignity. I have done so at all times honorably and honestly, Mr. Speaker, as God is my witness and history is my judge.”

See? Tom DeLay named God to be on his witness list. But no God. No Jesus, and not even one of His angels came to testify for Tom DeLay.

So not only did Tom DeLay not give testimony at his own trial, because Dick DeGuerin told him not to, but God was a no-show as well.

Maybe God figured that if He couldn’t help Tom in his defense, He probably shouldn’t take the stand on the off-chance that He might also hurt the case.

Making It

Did you see the short You Tube video of a squirrel trying to jump from a fence to the roof of a garage? It’s hilarious and instructive of how one should never attempt a line of sight leap through the air because gravity does have a say in your trajectory.

The You Tube clip’s sound track needed improvement however, which is what I did before reloading it at the website.

The symbology of the clip is appropriate to my coverage of all things Tom DeLay as he was being tried for money laundering this week in Austin. Like the squirrel, Tom DeLay disregarded a law that was put there for a reason. In his case, the law was put there to prevent people from buying elections. In the squirrel’s case, the law was put there to prevent people, the squirrel, and everything else, from flying off the face of the earth at over 600 meters per second.

Gravity. It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.

What Tom Didn’t Know

As promised, Tom DeLay’s hotshot big-dollar lawyer Dick DeGuerin produced Tom DeLay’s calendar so that he could prove unequivocally that Tom DeLay didn’t know about the democracy subverting dollar swap with the RNC on September 13, 2002. DeLay didn’t know about it because he wasn’t there.

Quod erat demonstratum.

One would think. Prosecutors pounced and turned the calendar back two pages and pointed at a September 11 appointment showing that Jim Ellis was in a meeting just after receiving a Fed Ex shipment that consisted of the blank check that would draw on TRMPACs corporate account. The check that he would hand over to the RNC two days later.

What was that meeting doing on Tom DeLay’s calendar?

DeGuerin missed that one.

Some hotshot lawyer.

Recovering, DeGuerin got two former aides to testify that DeLay wouldn’t have been sitting in on that meeting. “That would not necessarily have been a meeting for Tom,” one of them testified.

Maybe not. Maybe not.

So then why write it down in his calendar?

The aide replied that the meeting probably was on DeLay's schedule so he would know it was going on.

So here’s my question. Why would Tom DeLay need to know that a meeting was going on but not what was going on in the meeting? That makes no sense at all.

But getting back to Dick DeGuerin and a quote from one of my favorite films of all time, “My Cousin Vinny,” Dick DeGuerin, win some lose some.

When the Judge Argues for the Prosecution . . .

You might as well pack it in.

Today, as the prosecution was resting its case against Tom DeLay in his much anticipated money laundering trial, they got what I think might have been some unexpected help from an unanticipated corner of the room.

The judge.

Dick DeGuerin, Tom DeLay’s big dollar lawyer, in making his case for how the prosecution hadn’t made theirs, suggested that what Tom DeLay is being tried for is done all the time in Washington, and it’s OK. And it’s not only OK because it’s done all the time, it’s OK because it isn’t illegal.

Here is what he said:

“‘A person cannot become a conspirator unless he knows it is a conspiracy.’ DeGuerin said under the election laws of the time, both Democrats and Republicans made similar swaps of money all the time. ‘We're not saying it's O.K. because everybody did it. We're saying everybody did it because it was O.K.’”

Judge Pat Priest, who is a “visiting judge” in this case, a visiting judge with some actual background in the case as he made some rulings on pretrial motions as much as 5 years ago, I guess, couldn’t sit still and let that pass without comment. So he let DeGuerin have it with both barrels.

“Priest told him what made this case different was that Ellis gave then-RNC Political Director Terry Nelson a list of specific candidates who were supposed to receive non-corporate money in exchange for the deposit of corporate money with the RNC. ‘That agreement is what this lawsuit is about,’ Priest said.”

In short, what makes this case different was that there was a quid pro quo. Money changed hands and deal was made. The RNC was told what to do with the money that they got from TRMPAC as a donation to the conservative cause. When you do that, the intent of the donation – and therefore the conspiracy – is clear.

Clarity made crystal by Laylin Copelin, an Austin journalist who was one of the last to take the stand in the prosecution’s case. Copelin testified that DeLay told him in a 2005 interview that while he had learned of the money swap deal only after it was done, words that have been challenged by DeLay’s own voice on tape, even so, there was time after that alleged date to stop the RNC from issuing the checks to the seven Republican candidates per DeLay’s instructions. There was time, but he didn’t do it.

DeGuerin will say that he didn’t stop them from issuing the checks because they had done nothing wrong in the first place. Coming back full circle to Judge Priest’s observation: the difference here is that the RNC was given specific instructions about who to donate money to.

That is textbook conspiracy.

I can hear the jailer jingling his keys.

DeLays’s TRMPAC Spent Money It Didn’t Have

Well the prosecution in the Tom DeLay money laundering trial is about to rest its case, I hear. Today another nail was driven in the coffin that represents Tom DeLay’s future freedom of movement with the testimony of a “forensic accountant.”

That’s an interesting term, forensic accountant. Interesting because usually you see the term forensics used in a scientific investigation of evidence in a crime. This is the equivalent in the world of dollars and sense (or should I say nonsense?).

The forensic accountant, Marshall Vogt, pored over the accounting records of TRMPAC and asked some very important and pointed questions?

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“Why would a political committee that intended to function beyond the 2002 elections donate money it didn’t have to a larger, better-financed organization?”

Why indeed?

TRMPAC had two separate accounts, one containing contributions from individuals and one containing contributions from corporations. The check that Jim Ellis gave to the RNC was drawn on the corporate account. It was corporate money. But it gets even better than that.

According to the accountant, there weren’t enough funds in the account to cover the $190,000 check. It would have bounced had not John Colyandro made a personal loan of $40,000 to the PAC.

Why give a check for more money than the account contained to the RNC, an arguably better funded money raising organization than TRMPAC? Did it have to do with party building? Was TRMPAC just a flash in the pan temporary PAC meant to go out of business when it’s funds were all spent for the 2002 elections?

Did it have to do with the fact that 7 state rep seats needed to be picked up so Tom DeLay could have a second congressional redistricting party when his party won the majority in the mid-term elections?

Is this a trial about a crime committed or politics being committed? Frankly, yes, it’s about both. The irony is that in 2002 this was a felony punishable by up to a life sentence, now we live in a world where this is not only commonplace, but applauded as an exercise in freedom – that corporations have as much right to buy elections as anyone else.

I have the answer. It has been there all along. It’s still the law of the land that only US citizens may donate to campaigns, foreigners aren’t supposed to, at least not legally. It’s right there in the 14th Amendment that a citizen of the United States is born in this country or is naturalized.

Corporations are neither.

So, OK, let’s let corporations be people. They can be people. They just can’t be Americans.

No “Constitutional Republican” could hardly disagree.