DeLay Wants January Trial Date

AUSTIN - U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay is seeking a January trial on his money-laundering charge regardless of whether the Travis County District Attorney's Office appeals the dismissal of a related conspiracy charge.

DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, on Wednesday asked a judge to separate the money-laundering charge from a charge of conspiracy to engage in money laundering. "We have a right to sever (the charges) and proceed. We want this done and over with as quickly as possible," said DeGuerin.

Senior District Judge Pat Priest on Monday threw out a third charge of conspiring to violate the state election code, but upheld the other two charges.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has 15 days to decide whether to appeal the dismissal. DeLay's lawyers are worried that Earle may ask for a stay to halt all proceedings until an appellate court rules.

DeGuerin filed the motion to separate the money-laundering charges, saying the two are separate offenses. DeGuerin said if DeLay wins on the money-laundering charge, he thinks prosecutors may be barred from trying him for conspiracy. The district attorney's office declined comment on the motion.

University of Houston law professor Susan Waite Crump said Priest may decline to sever the charges because they arose out of the same transaction. She said separating them could result in two trials with the possibility of inconsistent verdicts.

Crump said it might be easier for prosecutors to prove conspiracy than actual money laundering. "Conspiracy doesn't require the person who is being tried to actually do anything if one of his co-conspirators commits the crime as long as there was an agreement and intent that the crime be committed," she said.

>>>DeGuerin also asked Priest to set a hearing as early as next week on DeLay's motion to move the case out of Travis County. DeLay is arguing that he cannot get a fair trial in the Democratic-dominated county.<

##2nd Article##

DeLay seeks Quick Trial on One Criminal Charge
By April Castro, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, December 08, 2005

- Indicted U.S. representative eager to retake his seat as majority leader.-

U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay asked a judge Wednesday to move forward on just one of the two remaining criminal charges against him, an effort to go to trial quickly and bypass what could be a long appeals process.

Judge Pat Priest dismissed one conspiracy charge against the Sugar Land Republican on Monday but let stand charges of money laundering and conspiracy to launder money.

Because Priest stripped some language in the remaining conspiracy charge, that count could remain tied up in courts if prosecutors appeal.

DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin asked Priest to isolate the money laundering charge and move forward with a trial on that charge alone.

DeLay is seeking a quick resolution of the charges so he can regain his post as House majority leader. As long as indictments are pending, House Republican rules prevent him from serving in the seat.

DeGuerin said that severing the remaining charges would "prevent expected efforts by the state to delay a public resolution of the case."

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has until Dec. 20 to appeal Priest's ruling.

Priest said he's not likely to set another hearing until it's clear whether the state will appeal, but DeGuerin asked Priest to schedule a pretrial hearing for next week and asked that a trial be tentatively scheduled for the first or second week in January.

It's not likely that Priest will proceed with a trial if an appeal is unresolved.

DeLay, 58, and two GOP fundraisers, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, are accused of illegally funneling $190,000 in corporate donations to 2002 legislative candidates. Under Texas law, corporate money cannot be directly used for political campaigns, only for administrative purposes.

The charges against DeLay could still be thrown out before a trial if Priest agrees with prosecutorial misconduct claims that defense attorneys have alleged.

Posted by TAB

12.07.05 - NRO Editorial: Justice Delayed

Texas Judge Pat Priest threw out one of the three indictments against Tom DeLay Monday, but he let the two other charges stand. The two remaining charges are just as weak and politically motivated as the charge that Priest dismissed, and DeLay is likely to prevail eventually. Still, Monday's ruling is widely seen as a political setback for the House Majority Leader, which it will be if DeLay's Republican colleagues hand the partisan Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle a victory he can't win in court.

DeLay was forced to step down as House Majority Leader after Earle charged him with conspiracy to violate the Texas election code. In Texas, it is a violation of the election code to use corporate campaign donations in political campaigns. However, corporations can contribute to political action committees if the money goes for overhead or administrative operations. This indictment alleged that the Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), which DeLay founded, accepted corporate money, and then sent $190,000 of it to a branch of the Republican National Committee in Washington with the intent that the RNC would then send $190,000 in checks from a separate account to candidates for the Texas legislature in the fall of 2002.

Prior to McCain-Feingold, which took effect after the 2002 elections, both parties often took advantage of the fungibility of soft money and hard money in national and state campaigns. According to the Institute on Money in State Politics, the Texas Democratic party did the same thing DeLay is charged with. In October of 2002, it sent $75,000 to the DNC and received $75,000 back from the DNC on the same day.

But Earle argued, based on his own interpretation of the law, that this transaction violated the election code's ban on corporate money. In August 2005, DeLay met with Earle to discuss Earle's investigation of the transaction. According to news reports, DeLay told Earle that he knew about the transaction, but that he thought it was fine because it was legal.

Earle considered this statement evidence that DeLay conspired to break the law, and got a grand jury to issue the first indictment on September 28. But shortly thereafter, DeLay's legal team filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, on the grounds that the Texas conspiracy statute did not apply to the election code in 2002.

This brings us to the second indictment. When Ronnie Earle realized that his conspiracy indictment wouldn't withstand pre-trial scrutiny, he rushed to a second grand jury and presented the same case. Only this time, Earle asked the grand jury to return charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Money laundering is defined as a financial transaction involving the proceeds of criminal activity. Earle alleged that DeLay engaged in money laundering because he knew the corporate money TRMPAC sent to the RNC was intended to end up in Texas political campaigns.

Earle offered as proof a list of names of Texas state legislative candidates with dollar amounts beside their names (view it here). But the list has no authors or dates on it. Neither the number of candidates nor the dollar amounts on the list match the numbers allegedly involved in the scheme. The list came from a document dump that TRMPAC provided to Earle early in the investigation. Earle has no evidence that DeLay or any of DeLay's co-defendants authored this list or even saw it, thus he has no evidence of any criminal intent. Based on the weakness of Earle's evidence, the second grand jury refused to indict DeLay.

Monday, Oct. 3, Earle's team was facing a crisis. But by appearing on numerous talk shows after the first indictment, DeLay had done Earle a favor. Even though DeLay's appearances produced no new substantial evidence against him, Earle gathered the transcripts and used this "new evidence" as an excuse to take his case before a third grand jury. At this point, DeLay's legal team alleges that Earle pressured the grand jury to indict DeLay on the money-laundering charges, even though the evidentiary picture had not changed. After only four hours of listening to Earle present his case, the third grand jury indicted DeLay for money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Judge Priest threw out the first indictment — conspiracy to violate the election code — on the grounds that DeLay's lawyers provided. But he let the money-laundering charges stand, pending a hearing to determine whether Earle acted improperly. Priest has expressed hostility to the idea of allowing DeLay's defense a free hand in investigating Earle's conduct. The case, then, will most likely make it to trial. DeLay's legal team had hoped to have the case over with one way or the other before the end of January when some nervous Republicans might want to replace him permanently with new leadership elections. Now it looks like the case might drag on beyond that point.

If DeLay wins his case and is acquitted — a highly probable outcome given Earle's stilted legal reasoning and dearth of hard evidence — he still must disentangle himself from the burgeoning Jack Abramoff scandal. But the list of people connected to Abramoff is ever-growing, most recently including Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan and Harry Reid. The conventional wisdom about DeLay's future will come to pass only if enough Republicans are willing to throw him overboard preemptively. That would hand Democrats a major political victory. If DeLay is guilty of crimes or if there are more damning Abramoff revelations, a permanent change in leadership might be warranted. In the meantime, he has earned his colleagues' patience, at least through early next year.

Earle's case is a travesty. The only thing worse would be for a vindicated DeLay to be relegated to the backbenches because his acquittal was a couple of weeks late.

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http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial/editors200512070958.asp

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