DeLay's Corporate Fundraising Investigated (WP -- Drudge's Story)

[kainah]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43219-2004Jul11.html

In May 2001, Enron's top lobbyists in Washington advised the company chairman that then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was pressing for a $100,000 contribution to his political action committee, in addition to the $250,000 the company had already pledged to the Republican Party that year.

DeLay requested that the new donation come from "a combination of corporate and personal money from Enron's executives," with the understanding that it would be partly spent on "the redistricting effort in Texas," said the e-mail to Kenneth L. Lay from lobbyists Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson.

The e-mail, which surfaced in a subsequent federal probe of Houston-based Enron, is one of at least a dozen documents obtained by The Washington Post that show DeLay and his associates directed money from corporations and Washington lobbyists to Republican campaign coffers in Texas in 2001 and 2002 as part of a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts.

more.........

[TahitiNut]

1. DeLay has been in bed so much with Enron ...

... it's amazing he doesn't have their baby.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stevebreeze]

3. so in effect Enron may provide the winning margin for the GOP in the house

I don't think I have ever heard a better reason for public funding via the "clean elections" approach.
:kick:

[mistertrickster]

4. It just doesn't stop, does it? Some day this nation will rise up . . .

and live out the true meaning of its creed.

But not while the Bushacrats are in office, that's for damn sure.

[Rose Siding]

5. Ronnie Earle sounds like he has a real handle on this

snip>
This case "is only one piece of a much larger picture," said Ronnie Earle, the Travis County district attorney running the investigation. "And the larger picture is a blueprint of what is happening in the country, namely a saturation of the political process by large corporate interests with large amounts of money."
.........................

It sounds like some of the money was laundered through the RNC-

snip>
RNC Involvement

Besides spending the corporate money it collected to benefit targeted candidates in 2002 -- through polls, fundraising events, voter identification efforts and investigations of Democratic opponents -- TRMPAC also sent corporate money to the Republican Party in Washington, starting a chain of events under review by prosecutors.

It worked like this: On Sept. 10, TRMPAC's director told its accountant that "a blank soft-dollar check" made out to the Republican National State Elections Committee should be sent overnight to Ellis, the ARMPAC director, at his headquarters in Washington, according to a copy of the director's e-mail. "Soft dollars" was a reference to corporate money. Ellis inscribed $190,000 on the check.

The national committee, in turn, sent the same total amount in seven checks ranging from $20,000 to $40,000 to Texas House candidates on Oct. 4, 2002, completing a transfer that Earle and others believe may have been intended to hide the corporate origins of the money and circumvent the law.

[rkc3]

6. Most righties will respond to these allegations as:

A liberal media attacking Tom Delay, or
All politicians have some skeletons, we should let Delay do this or we'll have to prosecute all politicians.

Unless of course, it's a Democrat.

[Swede]

7. Here's somemore dirt.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1803&u=/washpost/20040712/pl_washpost/a43219_2004jul11&printer=1