It appears that you view immorality and illegality of something depending on the damage done. Neither is correct: only the restituion depends on that.
Kind of sounds like they were piling the charges on him just a tad.
Somone steals $40,000 and only because it sound like "chump change" to you --- apparently wealthy person, since an average American family makes $45,000/year --- you think that THEY are piling charges?
Where does your simpathy compe from? Certainly not from prinicple. What comes to mind is for how long has he been doing the stealing, all the whhile chapmpioning the cause of the "people" against corportations and "blacks" against "whites?" (the last one seems to be suggested by the list of his awards)
Every politician uses such funds for personal reasons.
Firsty, it's not true: it's only your image of them (they are all liars, robbers, etc. aren't they?). Again and even if it were true, didn't your mother tell you that something does not become right only because other people do that?
I am really astonished. It's not that I disagree with your conclusions --- your thinking does not appear to involve morality. Oh well, kick em when they are down, I guess.
1) I am not rich. I am an Engineer, make decent money and put myself through college with the help of my wife. It took seven years, during which time I often worked full time in various jobs. I now make more then the average, but am far from "rich".
2) $40,000 is not chump change. But recall that Al Gore once said that a man who makes $50,000 a year for twenty years is a millionaire. In both cases, the money adds up. The $40,000 was over five years, which breaks down to $20.00 a day. No one prosecutes someone for that. But they may add those charges on, as you suggest, just to show a pattern. I call that "piling on".
3) I am all for prosecuting crooked politicians. I do believe that virtually all politicians are not completely clean. They all cheat to some extent, as exampled above in my earlier post. So why then do they go after some and not others? ........... Politics, pure and simple. They go after those they want, those who are not 'playing along'.
Why did all the hoopla on Delay and his travels go away? Not because he was guilty, but because he was going to take others down. So, his enemies backed off.
3) Morality? We are talking about politicians here. What does morality have to do with it? That is the cynical comment. In reality I do want our politicians to be clean, but reality tells me they are not. Some are, most are not.
4) Regarding this guy. I have never heard of him, and know nothing about him. I was simply making an observation about the realities of life in the political world. When you are going down, you will be stepped on and the politicians won't bat an eye.