{"id":1860,"date":"2005-09-29T03:35:16","date_gmt":"2005-09-29T10:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/09\/28\/the-indictment\/"},"modified":"2005-09-29T03:35:16","modified_gmt":"2005-09-29T10:35:16","slug":"the-indictment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1860","title":{"rendered":"The Indictment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay aka “the Hammer,” and two “associates” were indicted on the grounds of ‘criminal conspiracy’ by a Texas grand jury.<\/strong><\/a> Rep. DeLay also announced yesterday that he would step-down from his post temporarily and did so.<\/p>\n

[…]DeLay, 58, was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay’s national political committee.<\/p>\n

“I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today,” DeLay said.[…]<\/p>\n

Criminal conspiracy is a state felony punishable by six months to two years in a state jail and a fine of up to $10,000. The potential two-year sentence forces DeLay to step down under House Republican rules.[…]<\/p>\n

The indictment accused DeLay of a conspiracy to “knowingly make a political contribution” in violation of Texas law outlawing corporate contributions. It alleged that DeLay’s Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee accepted $155,000 from companies, including Sears Roebuck, and placed the money in an account.[…]<\/p>\n

“The defendants entered into an agreement with each other or with TRMPAC (Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee) to make a political contribution in violation of the Texas election code,” says the four-page indictment. “The contribution was made directly to the Republican National Committee within 60 days of a general election.”[…]<\/p>\n

“This indictment is nothing more than prosecutorial retribution by a partisan Democrat,” Madden said, citing prosecutor Ronnie Earle, a Democrat.<\/p>\n

Madden later added: “They could not get Tom DeLay at the polls. They could not get Mr. DeLay on the House floor. Now they’re trying to get him into the courtroom. This is not going to detract from the Republican agenda.”[…]<\/p>\n

“The criminal indictment of Majority Leader Tom Delay is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California.[…]<\/p>\n

A state political action committee he created, Texans for a Republican Majority, was indicted earlier this month on charges of accepting corporate contributions for use in state legislative races. Texas law prohibits corporate money from being used to advocate the election or defeat of candidates; it is allowed only for administrative expenses.<\/p>\n

With GOP control of the Texas legislature, DeLay then engineered a redistricting plan that enabled the GOP take six Texas seats in the U.S. House away from Democrats — including one lawmaker switching parties — in 2004 and build its majority in Congress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This could either be fun<\/em> or just painful<\/em> to watch as the investigation unfolds and more information is released to the media and public (*if* anymore is released). But still, I’ll stay tuned to CNN<\/em> just to see what happens to our deal ol’ Hammer, and the possible political ramifications that could<\/em> follow for those who were involved, and are now among ‘the accused’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay aka “the Hammer,” and two “associates” were indicted on the grounds of ‘criminal conspiracy’ by a Texas grand jury. Rep. DeLay also announced yesterday that he would step-down from his post temporarily and did … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}