Delay Indicted on Conspiracy Charges

House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) has been indicted today by a texas grand jury on criminal conspiracy charges related to illegal campaign funds. The charges stem from an investigation into a political group DeLay founded, Texans for a Republican Majority. The group is believed to have channelled corporate donations to local races; illegal under Texas law.

Besides the enormously important point that DeLay's carefully-balanced Republican graft and pay-for-play operations may spin out of control thanks to this investigation and an investigation into DeLay's close associate, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, this conspiracy investigation may involve the Republican National Committee.

In late September 2002, Colyandro, the executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, sent a blank check to Ellis, who is DeLay's primary fundraiser in Washington.

According to the money-laundering indictment returned against those two last year, Ellis was accused of having the Republican National Committee launder $190,000 of corporate donations into noncorporate money that was sent to to seven Texas House candidates, including Austinites Jack Stick and Todd Baxter.

There is an enormously complicated web of dependence that links together the current slate of Republican power-brokers and DeLay sits at the center of it all.

With a continuing investigation into Abramoff as well as the ongoing Rove-Plame investigation the DeLay indictment has the potential to finally crack open the door into the unethical and potentially illegal manner in which DeLay and Rove use enormous sums of money controlled by Abramoff and his associates to ensure the GOP marches in lock-step to their orders.

It's a disciplined machine that awes many in politics, but at its core it is based on illegal, corrupt and unethical actions.

- Murphy