Posts tagged Money laundering

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Tom DeLay was con­victed this week of money laun­der­ing, for vio­lat­ing a then hundred-​​year old law pro­hibit­ing cor­po­ra­tions from giv­ing money to can­di­dates, whether directly or indirectly.

Nat­u­rally, he con­sid­ers it to be a par­ti­san vendetta. It’s hard to imag­ine that there isn’t at least some Schaden­freude going on here, so to that extent he is cor­rect. At the same time, there are no dis­putes regard­ing the facts in the case.

DeLay gave $190,000, given to him by cor­po­rate lob­by­ists, to the RNC, who then dis­trib­uted the money to seven Repub­li­can can­di­dates for Texas state leg­is­la­ture posi­tions. They had an 86% suc­cess rate, scor­ing six wins, which helped to push the state leg­is­la­ture to the Repub­li­can side for the first time since Recon­struc­tion, and allowed for the con­tro­ver­sial mid-​​decade redis­trict­ing, designed to max­i­mize the num­ber of Repub­li­can House mem­bers rep­re­sent­ing Texas in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

It’s hard to imag­ine any­one more hyper-​​partisan than DeLay. I can’t help but won­der if he’s pleased with the tone of the House today, as a reflec­tion of his efforts of the last decade. And I won­der what it will take, and how long, to repair the damage.

Related Arti­cles

• Tom DeLay, con­victed felon (wash​ing​ton​monthly​.com)
• Tom DeLay Is Prob­a­bly Not Going to Get Life in Prison [Sen­tences] (gawker​.com)
• Tom DeLay Con­victed on Money Laun­der­ing Charges (the​root​.com)
• The Ham­mer comes down: DeLay con­victed (politico​.com)