Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

No Justins, No Peace

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / DeLay’s Offensive Defense Fund

DeLay’s Offensive Defense Fund

by | 12 Comments

This post is in: 

Not two weeks ago, I noted the following:

So you have several indictments against you for nefarious fund-raising deeds, to include a charge of money-laundering. If your first instrinct is to launch a website to solicit donations for your legal defense, you might be Rep. Tom DeLay.

For whatever reason, most of the people who I am aware of having a defense fund have been guilty of something. At any rate, in the news today:

Rep. Tom DeLay failed to comply with House requirements that he disclose all contributions to a defense fund that pays his legal bills, the Texas Republican acknowledged to House officials.

He wrote officials that $20,850 contributed in 2000 and 2001 was not reported anywhere. Another $17,300 was included in the defense fund’s quarterly report but not in DeLay’s 2000 annual financial disclosure report — a separate requirement.

Other donations were understated as totaling $2,800, when the figure should have been $4,450.

It was during that period that DeLay was the subject of several House ethics investigations.

Note to future Congressmen- when you have a legal defense fund, try to follow the contribution rules. These Republicans we elected are going to put the Onion out of business.

Reader Interactions

12Comments

  1. 1.

    SomeCallMeTim

    “The Republicans are going to …,” not, “These Republicans we elected are going to….” You vote for the drunken conductor, you vote for the train wreck. That’s called “accountability”; as a Republican, I guess you’re not expected to be familiar with the word.

  2. 2.

    John Cole

    By noting I voted for the Republicans, I am explicitly making myself accountable.

    Try having only a half dozen martinis after work, SomeCallMeTim.

  3. 3.

    Mike S

    These Republicans we elected are going to put the Onion out of business.

    But they’ll keep Jon Stewart in business. I don’t know if you caught him last night but his Coburn amendment take was perfect.

  4. 4.

    Zifnab

    :( Missed Stewart this week, sadly.

    Of course, when fund-raising gets you in this much trouble, I can’t help but wonder if using fund-raising to claw your way back out again is the wisest move.

  6. 6.

    SomeCallMeTim

    Given that the Anti-Iraq war Democrats have been pretty much right on everything (Bush is incompetent, Iraq’s a mess, the tax cuts were structured wrong, the deficit will balloon, etc.), I’m reminded of Lincoln’s apocryphal remark about Grant, and suggest that as long as you lot run the country, perhaps you should drink twice as much as whatever I’m having.

  8. 8.

    Louise

    Well, John, *I* appreciate your comment. It’s one of the reasons I’ve started coming here regularly and linking to you. Sure, I’d like folks like you to have felt this way a long time ago, but after wondering for a few years if the majority of the country had gone stark raving stupid, I’m happy to see reason and reality win out in some quarters.

    We do, one hopes, learn a little. At least I don’t have to think about “President Jeb” anymore, right?

  9. 9.

    Shygetz

    I, for one, and not the kind to bitch about taking responsibility whenever a Republican points out how wrong-headed the Republicans are being. It’s called negative reinforcement, and it’s not what I want to be doing.

    Kudos, John, for having the balls to point it out. Have a cookie.

  10. 10.

    Glen

    John,

    The GOP leadership has been, in effect, writing for The Onion for years. I’m glad to see that the rank and file have finally noticed.

    Personally, I favor vodka tonics. Current events may yet cost me my liver.

  11. 11.

    Krista

    Honestly, I feel bad for a lot of people who voted for Bush, who have now realized what a muck he’s made of things. Disillusionment is a very bitter pill to swallow. (Although a sour-apple martini washes it down quite satisfactorily.)

  12. 12.

    Paul L.

    Another DeLay Scandal?

    In a letter to the House clerk on Oct. 13, Mr. DeLay said he started an audit after discovering inconsistencies in his disclosures. He said the audit found that donations of $20,850 in 2000 and 2001 to the defense fund had not been reported.

    Mr. Delay said an additional $17,300 was included in the defense fund’s quarterly report but not in his 2000 annual financial disclosure report, a separate requirement.

    He said other donations totaling $2,800 should have been reported as totaling $4,450.

    “I brought this matter – which I discovered on my own – to the attention of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to alert the chairman and ranking member,” Mr. DeLay said in his letter.

    buried within the article:

    In a letter to the House clerk on Oct. 13, Mr. DeLay said he started an audit after discovering inconsistencies in his disclosures. He said the audit found that donations of $20,850 in 2000 and 2001 to the defense fund had not been reported.

    Mr. Delay said an additional $17,300 was included in the defense fund’s quarterly report but not in his 2000 annual financial disclosure report, a separate requirement.

    He said other donations totaling $2,800 should have been reported as totaling $4,450.

    “I brought this matter – which I discovered on my own – to the attention of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to alert the chairman and ranking member,” Mr. DeLay said in his letter.

    So, in summary:

    1. Tom DeLay notices inconsitencies in his own accounting of his legal defense fund.
    2. Based on these inconsistencies he initiates his own audit of the accounting.
    3. The audit discovers errors, which then prompts DeLay to notify the proper authorities of them.
    …
    I guess, if you’re a Republican, you can’t even fix your own honest mistake without getting lambasted.

    John, you may not like Tom Delay. But I have not yet to see anything that show his fundraising to be crooked.

Comments are closed.