Tom DeLay Indicted for Killing Jack Abramoff
Thursday, September 29, 2005
(SNN Miami Beech) On Wednesday, a Texas Grand Jury charge Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with the murder of super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The indictment has forced DeLay to temporarily step down from his position as Speaker of the House.
A defiant DeLay has said that he did nothing wrong and denounced the Democratic prosecutor who investigated the case as a “partisan fanatic”. Delay said, "This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. It's a sham."
DeLay, 58, was indicted on a single felony count with two political associates. The two previously had been charged with the same conspiracy count. The two associates are Anthony “Little Tony” Ferrari and Anthony “Big Tony” Moscatiello , who heads DeLay’s national political committee.
The grand jury accused DeLay of conspiring to route corporate donations through the Texas committee to pay for Abramoff’s gangland style execution, at a time when Ferrari and Moscatiello were on the RNC payroll. And while in Texas, it is legal for the PAC to take money from corporations, and it is legal for a PAC to hire gangsters in the employ of a political party, the money must not come on behalf of favors for corporate interests.
Delay still maintains that he has never done anything wrong
A favorite of the House Ethics committee, DeLay was actually forced to attend more meetings of the committee in 2004 than many of the committee members even attended. Delay still maintains that he has never done anything wrong, ever. The majority leader derided Earle as an "unabashed partisan zealot" and a "rogue district attorney."
While DeLay admits to asking Ferfari and Moscatiello to kill Abramoff, he insists that any homicide occurred as a personal favor, and it in no way had anything to do with the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they and their families were given by DeLay’s PAC.
