He sinned. He was too effective against dims.
Why was he tried? Google Ronnie Earle
Your understanding matches mine. This is criminalized politics, nothing more. Delay should win on appeal.
Worse case - he drags the appeal out two years and gets pardoned by a new GOP President. Or Gov Perry pardons him first.
The bigger issue is that criminalized politics things. It’s a hallmark of Third World dictatorships, esp marxist ones. That’s what the demscum are turning us into.
A Republic, is we can keep it...
This was a political witch hunt, pure and simple.
IMO he should not have been tried. This was done in the name of destroying a man and sending a message to other conservatives. Watch out...if they want to destroy someone they’ll just manipulate the rules/laws, whatever they must do.
I assume Delay will appeal and win; otherwise, dems will be facing the same charges and will have Delay’s conviction hanging over them.
There is a little more to it than what I had ever heard.
Donors, who were maxed out in contributions to their favorite candidates, would send blank checks to Washington DC where DeLay and his group would decide who needed money and how much.
Then they filled in the check for the appropriate amount then funneled the money back to each candidate. Yes, this practice may have been widespread. But it is also wrong.
I have worked for non-profits before and this is strictly forbidden.
You cannot give money to a 501c4 organization to have them direct their GOTV mailings only for the candidate of your choosing.
Just like you cannot give $5000 to the benevolence fund at your church and direct it to a specific person at the church.
It may have been a politically motivated prosecution, but that does not mean that the case had no merit.
- Texas prosecutors could not find any way to prosecute Delay for campaign finance violations.
- They then used Texas money laundering laws to prosecute Delay even though those laws clearly state that such proceeds must come from illegal activities and it is clear that Delay obtained the money legally.
- So Delay is convicted of money laundering of legally obtained funds (Statutes require that the funds be obtained illegally) to be used for supposed illegal activities (campaign finance laws which the prosecution knew they could never convict Delay of) and Delay is guilty of a felony?
Somebody help me out here. Why was this guy ever tried?
I think you have the basics of the case as I understand it and like you I’m not a lawyer and do have trouble at times dicephering the lingo.
The outcome now lies in the hands of the appellate system up to and including the nine member Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
This is SOP for RATS when faced with an effective opponent. They were scared to death of Karl Rove, so they tried to make him a criminal. Same thing with Dick Cheney, but since he was off-limits for practical purposes, they went after Scooter Libby.
It’s just a variant of the strategy to use the courts to overturn the public will on ballot initiatives. What cannot be accomplished at the ballot box is taken to the courts, which are run by liberals more often than not.
Reverse OJ Jury syndrome. Austin Jury. Jury forewoman a Greenpeace activist.
I think you have it just about right. The liberal jury paid attention to the letter of the Texas law and ignored the federal law. The funds came from two sources, corporate and PAC. In Texas, corporate funds were illegal and PAC funds were legal.
Apparently the funds were available first from corporate and the PAC funds were in receivables. As I understand it the decision was made to legally ‘swap’ the available funds for the PAC funds coming so that they could be disbursed. This was legal only if the PAC funds that came later were not forwarded to candidate campaigns.
To make it clear:
X funds in the bank from corporate
Y funds from PAC coming
Say X > Y,
Take Y funds from X and give to candidates
X-Y funds left in the account
Y funds from PAC arrive
Replace Y funds taken so now
X-Y+Y = X funds are left in the account for corporate purposes.
It was a legal swap and I believe the conviction will be overturned on appeal as the legality of the swap must negate the applicability of the Texas law.
As one can see from above, this was a political hit on Delay. The jury, although liberal, were given instructions to apply the Texas law without looking at the broader context. This is what political court cases do, they take the law out of context and nail a target within the smaller context.
I think Tom Delay will be free pending appeal and his appeal will be heard by Spring when his conviction will be set aside on the technicality that funds accounting must be considered in applying the Texas law.
While traveling if I use a corporate credit card to purchase Motrin because I am feeling bad, and I reimburse my company asap for the expense with a documented receipt, I should not be prosecuted or fired for using the company credit card for personal expenses as long as I promptly and honestly replaced the amount used for me personally, especially if I had a good reason for doing what I did.
In Tom Delay’s case, he had a good reason for doing what he did, he had receivables for PAC purposes, and he intended to replace corporate funds used for PAC purposes with those receivables. And he did replace those corporate funds used for PAC purposes. And it was legal to do so by federal law. The Texas law must consider the reconciled accounting and it is this accounting that must be examined, not the source of incidental expenses.
“Why was this guy ever tried?”
Simple - Delay is a Republican.
Delay could never hope to get a favorable verdict from an Austin Democrat jury. They are getting even with him for his redistricting them out of office, when Democrats had no business having the majority in the legislature because the state had become heavily Republican.
It’s ridiculous that this verdict came down after the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations can participate in federal campaigns under the First Amendment right of freedom of speech.
IOW, they don't have to prove that he violated TX election law to prove the conspiracy. They just have to prove that he conspired. And, any illegal acts that he committed in furtherance of that conspiracy, also expose him to criminal prosecution. That's why the money laundering charges have teeth.
I have no idea if Delay actually did what was alleged. And, let's stipulate that the prosecution was entirely politically motivated. Here's the problem. Such an argument to an appellate court is tough to make, and rarely prevails. Delay has to hope that his legal team can find some mistakes that the trial judge made when applying the law to the trial itself. Short of that, it's a VERY uphill battle.
IOW, as a practical legal matter, you better hope your best argument isn't, "This is a politically motivated prosecution". As I said, that's rarely successful.
Someone said on FoxNews that 9 of the jurors were Democrats and only 3 were Republicans.
ronnie earle is highly partisan dem prosecutor. dem
martin frost did exact same thing but was not prosecuted.
totally political, like ted stevens. if delay can get
fair judge on appeal, he could have last laugh.
But Charlie Rangle’s $400K ILLEGAL contributions only warrant censure?????
Delays lawyers should NEVER have let him be tried in Austin.