No one, and I mean no one has gone this far in showing just how far they are willing to go to retain power at any and all costs. No politician has ever run attack ads in an attempt to subvert political inquiries. Imagine if Regan, Clinton, Frist, Trafican had done what DeLay has done. Imagine if Clinton started running attack ads on Ken Starr. Ken Starr was obviously partisan, but even Clinton is a far better man than Tom DeLay.
The sad thing is that his own party is defending him when he should be being hung up by his thumbs. He is a shame and an embarrassment to Republicans of un-paralleled proportions. It is sad that the Republican party has fallen so far.
DeLay Uses Website to Attack Prosecutor
By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Stung by his recent indictment in Texas, Tom Delay is trying to turn his legal woes into a financial boon for his re-election. The former House majority leader is using his congressional campaign to distribute to voters derogatory information about the prosecutor who brought the charges against him and to solicit donations for his re-election.
"Help Tom fight back," reads one of the solicitations on the http://www.TomDelay.com Web site that voters are being directed to as part of an Internet-based campaign funded by DeLay's re-election committee.
Contributors, voters and others who sign up can get regular e-mails and an electronic "toolkit" from DeLay's campaign with the latest disparaging information his legal team has dug up on Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle.
"Join thousands of conservatives across the country in the fight against liberal DA Ronnie Earle," recipients are told.
(Full Story)
And for those of you who don't believe this is jury tampering, Bayer was cited for doing something very similar in 2003.
The trial was temporarily halted after it became known that Bayer had approved and sent a mass mailing about the case to over 2100 Corpus Christi residents…some of whom were on the prospective jury panel….while jury selection in the case was under way. The letter was apparently timed to coincide with the selection of the jury for the case.
4 comments:
Politics.
All this after Earle is accused of contacting Grand Jurors.
This is far beyond politics. As an attorney, trust me that you DO NOT want a judicial system run like this. This would be seriously damaging to our very foundations (and I don't say this lightly) for this to become the norm.
What Earle did ws spun out of proportion by DeLay and regardless, it is not jury tampering. What DeLay is doind is represhensible.
Imagine if Earle started running attack ads on DeLay. It is simply wrong, unethical, and probably illegal.
Also true- but Earle did contact Grand Jurors- at least that is what the GJ's are saying. What the hell was he thinking?
Is there a way that Earle could be replaced? Might that be a good idea? I'm asking because I don't know what or if DeLay did what they said he did- or for that matter, if what he did was illegal.
In any event, wouldn't it be better for the State if Earle was gone?
There are two parts to this. First, contacting them to see if the additional information would have lead to a money laundering charge - Ethically, there was really nothing wrong with what Earle did. In fact, you might actually say it was more ethical than trying to indict DeLay without the former juries input.
Second, telling the new grand jury that the old grand jury would have indicted if they had new information. This is a little more iffy. I have never heard of that happening before, so I can't honestly say if it is ethical or not. It might happen a lot, it might never happen. I think it depends on how much information from the transcripts of the prior grand jury he presented to the jury. If he relied on mostly that, then it probably isn't too bad. If he didn't rely much on it and just pushed "but the other jury would have indicted," then it does not look great for him. But since both of the charges are similar in nature, don't think it matters all that much.
that would be up to Earle to find a new prosecutor since he is the top dog in Austin. He would have to give it up. I don't think anyone could make him do it.
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