Rep. DeLay's political committee under Texas probe
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Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland.
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HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters) -- A Texas prosecutor has launched a sweeping investigation into possible criminal activities by a political action committee formed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay -- and Republicans are howling in protest.
Texas Republican Party chairwoman Tina Benkiser called the probe a "baseless, partisan witch hunt" and Friday said Republicans would favor pulling state funds from the office of the man behind it, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who is based in Austin, the state capital.
Earle, a Democrat, disclosed this week that nearly 50 subpoenas had been issued seeking testimony and records related to DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority, or TRMPAC.
The committee was a big contributor to Republican candidates to the state legislature in 2002 and helped elect the first Republican majority in that body since the Civil War.
But there are allegations that TRMPAC gave the candidates money that came from corporate donors, which is illegal in Texas, and that it used Tom Craddick, who was seeking votes in his successful race to become Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, to illegally deliver the contributions.
Earle is thought to be looking into the possibility that TRMPAC tried to get around state law by giving $190,000 raised from corporate sources to the Republican National Committee in September 2002.
The prosecutor is investigating the contributions because the RNC issued checks totaling exactly $190,000 to seven Texas house candidates in the three weeks after receiving the TRMPAC money. RNC chairman Jim Dyke told the Dallas Morning News the donations were a "coincidence."
The TRMPAC also gave $152,000 to Craddick to hand out to 14 candidates, which would have been illegal if Craddick gave the money in hopes of getting votes for speaker in return.
He won the speaker's race and admits delivering the money, but said he did so without any "quid pro quo."
Republican redistricting plan
The fund-raising efforts by DeLay, who represents a Houston area district in the U.S. House of Representatives, paid off for him in a big way when the Republican-controlled state legislature pushed through last year a controversial redistricting plan for the 32 Congressional seats from Texas.
The plan, which outnumbered Democrats in the legislature tried to halt by twice fleeing the state to break quorum, ultimately could add seven Republicans to what is now a narrow Republican majority in the U.S. House, legislators said.
So far, Delay has not been subpoenaed in the Texas probe, but his daughter, Danille Ferro, a Republican fund-raiser, has been, Earle disclosed.
An angry DeLay told reporters in Washington the investigation was nothing more than partisan politics.
"This is an attempt to criminalize politics and we have a runaway district attorney in Texas," he said.
Earle laughed off the allegations, pointing out that his Public Integrity Unit, which has functioned for years as a watchdog of government and gets state funding to do so, has investigated 15 politicians, some Republicans, some Democrats.
"Being called partisan and vindictive by Tom DeLay is like being called ugly by a frog," he told the Houston Chronicle.
Benkiser, in an audio statement on the Texas Republicans website, accused Earle of "simply being a Democrat who is unhappy with Texans giving stewardship of the state government to Republicans."
She signaled that Republicans, who now control every statewide office in Texas, may flex their political muscles against Earle by going after the $1 million his Public Integrity Unit gets in the state budget.
"Taxpayers would likely realize a significant tax savings by transferring that unit's authority to the office of Attorney General," she said.
The Texas Attorney General is Greg Abbott, a Republican.
Copyright 2004
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
