Posted on 10/05/2005 9:22:48 AM PDT by texas_mrs
If U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, ever appears before a jury to answer money-laundering and conspiracy charges, his biggest challenge may be explaining the monied ways of Washington's K Street to Main Street.
Focus groups of potential jurors in a related civil trial in the spring expressed serious doubts about the $190,000 transaction at the heart of the felony indictments, according to a source familiar with the litigation. Though the average person on the street may question what DeLay's defenders say is routine business among political professionals, DeLay insists he couldn't have conspired to launder corporate money into campaign donations because he knew nothing about the transaction until after it had occurred.
William Gibson, the foreman of the Travis County grand jury that first indicted DeLay, isn't buying it.
"Like any CEO, DeLay has to stay quiet," Gibson said in an interview Tuesday. "But he knew what was going on."
Dick DeGuerin, DeLay's lawyer, objected to the comments by Gibson, who has given several media interviews since last week's indictment, because grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret: "He ought to be held in contempt."
State law prohibits the spending of corporate money in connection with political campaigns. DeLay and two associates are accused of conspiring to circumvent that ban by exchanging $190,000 of corporate money for the same amount of noncorporate donations from the Republican National Committee to seven Texas candidates' campaigns. DeGuerin said the transaction was legal and commonplace.
In the interview, Gibson declined to discuss what grand jurors considered critical evidence that persuaded them to return an indictment. He also wouldn't say why he thought DeLay knew what was going on with Texans for a Republican Majority, the political committee DeLay created and then turned over to co-defendants John Colyandro and Jim Ellis to run.
DeLay has said that he knew the group was raising corporate money but that Ellis and Colyandro were instructed to clear all their actions with lawyers.
Gibson said Tuesday that DeLay had an "open invitation" to speak to the grand jury without being under oath. Instead, DeLay and his legal team met with prosecutors Aug. 31 in an attempt to head off an indictment. Grand jurors later read a transcript of the interview.
"We heard his side of it," Gibson said.
DeGuerin said DeLay met with Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle because the Democratic prosecutor had threatened to subpoena the U.S. House majority leader and have him indicted. DeGuerin said DeLay agreed to answer prosecutors' questions to help them prepare for trial. (Ellis and Colyandro already had been indicted.)
"When Tom DeLay gave that statement, he was told he was not a target of the investigation," DeGuerin said. "He was lied to."
Earle declined to comment Tuesday.
Public comments by Gibson, a 76-year-old former sheriff's deputy, have irritated DeLay's defense team. In one interview, Gibson appeared on television with his back to the camera. He said he doesn't like to have his face shown because he once was threatened with retribution when he was a deputy.
Gibson said Earle "did not run a vendetta" against DeLay. He added that the grand jury did not consider DeLay's powerful leadership position, which GOP rules forced him to resign when he was indicted.
"We weren't looking at the big man in Washington," Gibson said. "We were looking at him as a Texan. All we were looking at was a resident of Texas violating the Texas law."
One ruling already in
Whether or not DeLay's legal team can silence Gibson, at a trial they could face similar skepticism about how politicians and the interest groups on K Street raise and spend money from large donors.
The $190,000 transaction was at center stage of a civil trial in March.
Several Democratic candidates sued former Dallas Rep. Bill Ceverha, the treasurer of Texans for a Republican Majority, for failing to disclose the corporate money publicly. To test how it would resonate with a jury, Ceverha's lawyers tried legal defenses before focus groups, according to a source who has been briefed on the results. The source sought anonymity because of the scrutiny surrounding the DeLay investigation.
"No one bought the defense arguments," said the source. "They just didn't get it."
Ceverha's lawyer, Terry Scarborough of Austin, declined to discuss the findings of the focus groups. But he said the focus groups did not have anything to do with his decision to try the case before a judge instead of a jury.
"At the end of the day, we felt the real questions were questions of law, not of facts," he said. "There was no dispute about the facts."
State District Judge Joe Hart ruled against Ceverha, saying Texans for a Republican Majority violated state election laws.
Cash swaps common
The DeLay camp has insisted that transactions like the $190,000 one occurred all the time in the nation's capital in 2002.
One critic of the practice is Larry Noble, executive director and general counsel at the Center of Responsive Politics, a group that tracks political money in Washington.
He said that in 2002 there were large "money swaps" by Democrats and Republicans but that they typically involved state and national political parties — not individual political committees. He said both parties moved money around the country to sidestep such restrictions as Texas' ban against corporate spending in campaigns.
Noble said such money swaps were considered legal by the Federal Election Commission. But he added that federal law prohibits "earmarking," which is when someone gives money to a political committee with instructions that it go to a specific candidate.
"It was considered illegal at the federal level if it happened with instructions to give it to a specific candidate," he said.
Noble said Earle's money-laundering case might rise or fall on the allegation that Ellis gave the Republican National Committee $190,000 in corporate donations as well as instructions to give the same amount to seven Texas candidates.
Ellis' lawyer, J.D. Pauerstein, could not be reached Tuesday night. But in the past he has contended that the transaction was legal and that the corporate-money ban is unconstitutional.
The criminal defense team has said the $190,000 in corporate money and the RNC political donations were not the same money and were kept in separate accounts.
Noble noted that so much money was flowing in and out of the RNC that prosecutors will not be able to show the same dollars — serial numbers and all — to jurors.
Plus, even if Earle made a case against Colyandro and Ellis, DeLay's lawyer — DeGuerin — said the indictment gives no evidence of DeLay's involvement.
"You've got to show a person is an active partner and knew the scheme is wrong," DeGuerin said.
Noble said it will be interesting to see whether a Texas jury accepts K Street's explanation of how it shifted money: "The political culture has gotten out of touch with reality."
Dick DeGuerin will beat incompetent Ronnie Earle like a borrowed mule. There is no case here against "Teflon Tom". 2-bit Ronnie Earle is totally out of his league.
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