The alleged money laundering that has become a modus operandi for the Republican culture of corruption is becoming increasingly well-known. At the center of the alleged money laundering is the ring-leader and recently indicted Tom DeLay, the creater and owner of a Political Action Committee called TRMPAC, which was also indicted in the ever-widening criminal scandal in Texas.
In Texas the law is clear: it is illegal to take corporate money and use it for elections. In an alleged money laundering scheme, Tom DeLay’s PAC took corporate money, sent it to the RNC, who cut checks back to individual canditdates in Texas.
Even though the money went through the RNC, it is still corporate money in violation of Texas law. The sham transaction that was funneled through the RNC was merely a guise to hide the source of the corporate funds and evade Texas law.
DeLay met for at least 30 minutes with his top TRMPAC fundraiser, the also-indicted Jim Ellis, in early October of 2002 --the same day that the RNC in Washington set in motion a series of financial transactions at the heart of the case against DeLay and TRMPAC.
Ellis had earlier given the RNC a check for $190,000 drawn mostly from corporate contributions. The same day as the meeting, the RNC ordered $190,000 worth of checks sent to seven Republican legislative candidates in Texas.
All of this will become more clear as the trial of Tom DeLay and TRMPAC proceeds or if he cops a plea. The lingering question is that when you launder money, the entity you are funneling it through is guilty of money laundering as well. Why hasn't the Republican National Committee itself been indicted?
The prosecutor who brought the indictment, Ronnie Earle, has not described the evidence he presented to the grand jury linking DeLay to the $190,000 transactions. But the fact that DeLay and his alleged co-conspirator, fundraiser Ellis, conferred on the same day the checks were ordered has attracted speculation that the two men shared information at the heart of the conspiracy on that day.
Article comments
1 - Dr. Kurt
While a conspiracy is a conspiracy, and should indeed be prosecuted, I won't hold my breath. It would be fun, though, to go after corporate campaign crimes at a national level.
2 - Marcia L. Neil
'Nooz' funneled from a peninsula setting is pooled and manipulated until it 'fits' into major headline news stories. One reality is that a 'delayed' feline pregnancy here in the City of San Francisco, CA, peninsula demonstrated the ability of a female cat to time her litter as a sort of birth-order spacing -- three kittens months ago, and more live births within past weeks. That such information has been seized and trans-formed into a sort of defamation scheme is not surprising but always alarming.
3 - bert
PAC's and SIG's are the downfall of america today, in my view...when we get to the point where representation is basically sold by-the-pound, we've turned a corner from actual democracy and sold ourselves to the highest bidder, nationally. A political action committee is just that, a group formed to achieve a specific outcome in the poltical sphere, a body that doesn't really represent The Public anymore, but typically a well-heeled subset who have chosen to give money to and support such an entity in order to in return seek personal gain and benefit from that entity's achievements. In one respect it's kind of hard to fathom why
there aren't better safeguards against the actions of such bodies/groups, as it can be fairly said that they don't represent The People, as such.
When we've hit the day where Congress can't make it's own mind up on an issue in the absence of influence from high-dollar action groups, well...then we've got issues as a nation...
There are serious issues on the table, such as the debt, which, if continued to allow to grow, will soon hit 10 trillion dollars. That equates to some 400+ billion annual interest due, taken
in the form of unnecessary taxes. I think that, faced with the decision, most people would opt NOT to pay taxes to china and saudi arabia, but that's exactly where all this is leading to. It doesn't matter HOW much money you have if you already owe ALL of it on a previous debt. Money is the capacity to buy things or use services that help us improve our lives. Better to leave such money in the hands of the people that worked for it and earned it, rather than in the hands of some faceless PAC whose only objective is cheap radios from china etc.