Earle Is Just Covering His Bases

This from today's Statesman story on the new Tom DeLay indictments, DeLay indicted on 2 new counts:

"It isn't unheard of — the Legislature passing a law to make clear what the law is," Dix said of the 2003 change by the Legislature.

Still, prosecutors who spent three years on the case felt a need to get a new indictment. And they felt compelled to do it before today, the third anniversary of the donation of $190,000 in political contributions from the Republican National Committee to seven Texas candidates' campaigns. The statute of limitations for indictment is three years.

Prosecutors ran the idea of a money-laundering indictment against DeLay by the previous grand jury by phone over the weekend, sources close to the investigation said. DeGuerin complained that Monday's grand jury had to act in only a matter of hours in a case of such complexity and magnitude after Earle had had three years to make his point.

Dix said Monday's re-indictment was a surprise.

"This is an unusual case," Dix said, "with an unusual twist."

DeLay is scheduled to appear in court for arraignment Oct. 21.

Hopefully that takes care of the statute of limitations problem. My earlier post may have been a to harsh on Ronnie Earle but it made me mad when I saw that DeLay might get off and not stand trial for what he has done.

But this post, MORE TROUBLE AHEAD, shows that DeLay has more problems than what Ronnie Earle is working on (via OffTheKuff):

DeLay may not have seen the worst of it yet. Sources tell TIME that while Earle was closing in on DeLay from Austin, Texas, a federal investigation into the spreading scandal around disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, accused with Michael Scanlon (a former press secretary of DeLay's) of bilking their Indian-tribe clients out of $66 million, has begun lapping at the edges of the former majority leader's operation. A former Abramoff associate who was questioned by the FBI in August says, "They had a lot of e-mails, a lot of traffic between our office and DeLay's office." Many of those exchanges involved lavish travel by DeLay arranged by the lobbyist but requested, the e-mails suggest, by aides in DeLay's office. (House members are allowed to accept gifts under limited circumstances but not to solicit them.) Says the source: "There was nothing I saw that hit DeLay personally, but there was a lot of questionable stuff that was going on with his staff. 'Tom wants this. Tom wants that.' Was it really him or just the staff that was being aggressive?" DeLay's office wouldn't comment on the Justice Department investigation, and neither would the FBI.