Posted on 09/30/2005 11:20:30 PM PDT by indcons
AUSTIN - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Friday a documentary film crew's behind-the-scenes access to the Travis County prosecutors who indicted him proves Ronnie Earle is little more than a publicity seeker.
"He's got a film crew that has been following him around for two years to document how he's going to get Tom DeLay," DeLay said on a Houston radio talk show.
Earle led a two-year investigation into state campaign financing that resulted in a Travis County grand jury returning a criminal conspiracy charge against DeLay on Wednesday. Earle said he followed the same rules with the documentary filmmakers that he would with any journalist.
"When somebody said to (President) Harry Truman, 'Give 'em hell, Harry,' he said, 'I just tell 'em the truth and they think it's hell,' " Earle said. "I told them the truth, and they thought it was a movie. Go figure. I'm just doing my job."
Independent filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck began making their documentary, The Big Buy, in February 2003. Schermbeck said the movie follows Earle's investigation to show how corporate money was used to fuel Republican efforts to win the 2002 Texas House elections.
Earle and his staff members sat for interviews, as they have with the news media, the filmmakers told the Houston Chronicle.
They said the only special inside access they received was being allowed into Earle's office in the minutes before he came out to announce indictments last October against DeLay associates John Colyandro, Jim Ellis and Warren RoBold.
Schermbeck said they never saw any legal documents or evidence before they became public. "Ronnie is too ethical a person to allow that to happen."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
r.g.ratcliffe@chron.com
When Delay's lawyers subpoena the film and tapes--every single frame--it should blow Earl's case out of the water, should force him to recuse himself, and should expose Earl for the slimey Democrat operative he is.
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