The WaPo reports that Tom DeLay, who recently denied Jack Abramoff three times to Sue Schmidt, basically worked as head prep cook in Abramoff’s high-volume kitchen of sleaze. Josh Marshall outlined this controversy before anybody else, combining insider sources and reporter’s intuition to define a massive clandestine network that basically operated as a money-laundering nexus and slush fund for the modern Republican party, and he has the best commentary on the latest scoop.
Threatening to ramp up this story from a slow burn into a full-fledged forest fire, rumors about Abramoff announcing a plea agreement have fixed on Tuesday as the likely announcement date.
As I’ve pointed out before, this story threatens to become the consuming scandal of 2006. Numerous informed sources have said that this could become the biggest criminal case against Congress since and possibly including Abscam. Fasten your seatbelts.
Geek, Esq.
There should be RICO charges brought here.
DeLay belongs in prison for a long, long, long time.
And all of his supporters should be required to wear pins with his mugshot on them.
Btw, who wants to bet that his federal mugshot won’t be so smiley?
demimondian
I’ll take that bet for a dollar, Geek.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m with you, he’s going down, and pulling a lot down with him. This is going to hurt the House Republicans in 2006, and, as far as thyy’re concerned, it’s breaking at just the wrong time. As long as Abramov and ARMPAC were separate, the damage was contained, but that no longer the case, now that they are tied together. The only thing which could make it worse for the Republicans in the House would be to tie them to Plame or to illegal wiretaps in an October surprise.
But DeLay is still smiling. He’s got his, and he won’t be going down for RICO. I’ll bet that he gets 24 months at the outside, and I’ll bet that he comes out with enough money and leverage left to rebuild his empire after he gets back out.
OCSteve
“shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both”
6 counts – 120 years. That ought to loosen his lips.
I hope he sings like a canary and they lock up every dirty pol.
demimondian
I think, by the way, that Steno Sue’s article on Friday was meant to blunt this one. DeLayCo were trying to get the “they didn’t know one another” story out there to feed the talking points. The only reason it hasn’t already stuck is that there were already counterstories out there.
demimondian
OCSteve — how do you see wire fraud?
Rob
John,
I am curious what you think of Josh? You link to him fairly often, yet he seems to be far to the left of you.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007290.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007266.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007242.php
OCSteve
What he was charged with back in August:
charged with five counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy
The Other Steve
You know, that one was just amazing to me after the other articles claiming otherwise had already been out.
But I would not at all be surprised to see the Darrel’s and Another Jeff’s of the world over on LGF and redstate calling us all moonbats because we thought Delay knew Abramhov, and continually using this quote from the Steno Sue article.
John Cole
Holy loads of understatement, Tim. This could be the scandal of the last 5 decades, making the Keating Five and Abscam look like pikers.
stickler
Oh, don’t forget about its major competition: the Iraq war. The kind of money DeLay and Abramoff were slinging around amounts to less than a rounding error in Halliburton’s shenanigans. And more Americans are getting killed in Iraq than will ever die from DeLay’s corruption.
It’ll be an interesting 2006, what with all these scandals and foreign policy blunders coming to a head. Payback’s a bitch.
demimondian
OCSteve — Oh. Yeah. That. I forgot about *that* — I mean, what’s a couple of indictments by some pissant district attorney when we’re turning the corner on attention from the Real(TM) Department of Justice(R)?
D’oh.
demimondian
Who are you going to pay back, Stickler? You liberals, all the same. More concerned with political “payback” than on the good of the nation. There’s nothing illegal about aggressive lobbying, or about having third parties take
illegalcontributions from foreign entities, provided that money is used by those third parties for their own purposes, and that they are compensated for any benefits which they provide to the representative.This is just a sideshow — an attempt at “getting even” for Clinton’s perjury trial (in which, you’ll notice, he was acquitted, showing that the Republican Party puts the good of the nation ahead of the need to punish the guilty.)
rainyday
The Other Steve Says:
…But I would not at all be surprised to see the Darrel’s and Another Jeff’s of the world over on LGF and redstate calling us all moonbats because we thought Delay knew Abramhov, and continually using this quote from the Steno Sue article.
Agreed. Absolutely. But these are the rabid ones that really care not for good policy at all. They care only about winning (and are absent of integrity enough to believe that denial and lies are good foundations of strategy). There still are, however, moderate repubs and conservatives who long for a party less willing to bankrupt the treasury while financing bad policy. Remember, the country in 2004 was split 51% to 49% in favor of Bush and his ilk. The revelation of what the leaders of the party in power have been doing behind closed doors is going to go a long way, tipping the 49% into a majority. Especially if this turns out to be a long drawn out affair, getting air time for months. Add this to the proposed investigation of whether Bush was domestically spying…Boys and girls – it’s showtime!
Rob
John:
demimondian Says:
I think he has his fingers in his ears and saying ‘na-na-na-I can’t hear you’
demimondian
Rob — I don’t understand. Which he are we talking about here? Clinton? He’s not president any more, and he’s already been disbarred as a part of the settlement, so I don’t see how he could be punished any more than he already has been.
Perry Como
He should be shipped off to North Africa to a secret facility so he can be not-tortured into confessing his role in 9/11.
Pooh
dem, Dougie would be so proud of you right now.
demimondian
Hush, Pooh.! I’m trying to reel in a fish here, and you’re making noise…
Where is DougJ, anyway?
Otto Man
Agreed. Like I said at my place, if the AP reporting is true and investigators are preparing cases against twenty congressmen, this is going to be the biggest congressional scandal of the century.
demimondian
Yeah — twenty martyrs to an out-of-control judiciary trying to resisting the reining in its power by a Republican congress which isn’t afraid of resisting it. So, the left is going to gin up a scandal, and ruin the brave and honest men and women who dared to win America away from the East-coast elite.
capelza
Didn’t Bush say he stands by Delay, that he is innocent of the charges?
In fact he did, I just wanted to say that.
Otto Man
You’ve got to dial it down, demi. Doug J’s success lies in the fact that the insanity is spread thinly across his posts. You want to aim for a Robert Novak level of partisan sniping, but you’re coming across like G. Gordon Liddy.
Pooh
I dunno Otto, have you seen Darrell once he gets going? (and wouldn’t “Other Brother Darrell” be a great spoofing alias here?)
demimondian
Bingo, Pooh. I’m aiming for a saner version of Darrell.
demimondian
Another American hero, ruined by the vindictive press and an out-of-control American left, trying to keep control in the hands of a few effete academics, selling the country to its enemies.
Otto Man
If you’re aiming for Darrell, then well played. In fact, you might want to step it up a notch.
demimondian
Just the press deliberately attempting to portray our nation’s leader as a chimp-eared chump. What the president actually said was “I didn’t stand by and delay, even though I think he’s innocent of the charges.”
And, just you watch, Tom DeLay will be vindicated in the end. In fact, I’ll be shocked if he ever stands trial — the American people and their elected representative in Chief will not let him down.
demimondian
Seriously: I read the sentence as saying that a total of twenty people, including both congressmen and their staff members, would face charges. It will still be the biggest scandal since Watergate — not to mention a lot more damaging, since the House is each party’s seed corn for the Senate and the Presidency and the House staff is the seed corn for the party itself — but it’s not quite “twenty Republicans members of the House on trial in 2006” (which would virutally guarantee a Democratic take-over for the house next November.)
Tim F.
People, one of these days we have to talk about the concept of a ‘niche.’
Otto Man
Hmm. You might be right there. We should know soon enough.
Pooh
Well if there are “staffers” involved in the 20 you think none of them have info on higher ups and won’t roll?
demimondian
Have you ever been “staff”? I haven’t — see, there *is* something I’ve never done! — but I’m given to understand that to flip your boss is the end of your political career, even as administrative assistant to a half-wit on a city council.
It’ll come down to whether a staffer gets nailed with something so bad that he or she doesn’t care, but where he or she has the goods on the boss in writing. Such a staffer might flip. Others? Not so much, I’m thinking.
Pooh
What like being on DeLay/Cunnigham’s staff is a resume builder after this is over? Once they start mentioning “RICO predicates” bladders tend to get weak.
Besides, I’m thinking there may be one or more guys apprehended with the proverbial non-sequential, small bills in hand…
demimondian
We can only hope. I’m sure at the least that there may be a few young things who are currently investigating novel residential arrangements.
Sojourner
So is going to prison. But prison tends to end most other career options as well.
demimondian
These folks are going to jail anyway — they aren’t going to have enough to drive that hard a bargain. The only question is how long, and where.
If a US Attorney manages to find a way to be able to say “RICO” and make it sound good…
Sojourner
Depends on which ones can flip for bigger fish. We’ll see.
narciso95
Abramoff, was a crook, both at Greenburg, Traurig, and later at Sun Cruz casinos. he basically defrauded his clients and forward those moneys to major candidates.(Not unlike Keating, and the esteemed Senators McCain,DeConcini, Glenn, et al; or Dixon, Jim Wright) The fact, that many persons received campaign contributions, including to not a few democratic senators isn’t news. The only issue, would really be if those recipients, knew of his criminalbehavior, at the time of the contributions, he got caught, now he’s singing, but in point of fact, he’s the lead offender sow we’ll take his claims with a grain of salt. we can’t very well rely on Abramoff, as the final authority there. The stuff about Halliburton and rounding errors is quite amusing, how about 1/3 of the 590 billion in UN tsunami relief, has gone to overhead; or the 50 billion dollar oil for food, et al. The 79 oil companies;
Predominantly German, French and Russian,although there
was one Vietnamese, several Canadian including one tied
to the former Prime Minister. who had concessions in Iraq, till ’93;the lionshare of oil companies in Sudan,just Southeast of Darfur (to cite one example; Petrochina, was a major client of the incoming NJ governor’s firm)The family holdings of the former national security advisor, in Conoco and Amoco,at the time of the controversy of the Tamraz
pipeline. (Reason why any real action on Darfur, would stall at the UN)
ats
“his could become the biggest criminal case against Congress since and possibly including Abscam.”
I was on the Hill during Abscam. This is a far more serious matter. Many more people, much higher up.
ats
“Clinton’s perjury trial (in which, you’ll notice, he was acquitted, showing that the Republican Party puts the good of the nation ahead of the need to punish the guilty.)”
Actually, what it showed me was that the Republicans can read polls. Clinton’s numbers went up during impeachment. As I recall, his numbers were 25 points higher that GWB now.
T Mag
There should be RICO charges brought here.
More like RINO charges. Abramoff is a charlatan. No one in Congress liked or respected him, but now he sees a way to squirm off the hook by ratting out his former clients. You think a jury will believe him? He has zero credibility.
Baron Elmo
Expect lots more hatchet job articles on Abramoff from conservative journalists (like the one Susan Schmidt penned for the WAPO) that make a point of distancing him a continent or two away from Tom DeLay.
Jack is dead meat, the GOP is tossing him to the sharks, and their main objective at this point is to keep DeLay from getting spattered by flying blood’n’guts.
Witness the preceding comment, in which it is revealed that Abramoff was never “liked or respected” by Republicans. It speaks volumes about the character of the GOP that so many of them managed to hold their noses long enough to feast in his hog trough.
capelza
I see the marching orders have been received….
Bruce Moomaw
Either the NY Times or the Washington Post, about a year ago, quoted one of Abramoff’s dinner companions as saying that Abramoff had told him that he’d kept all his incriminating E-mails from DeLay. And, indeed, it’s hard to see the Feds giving a fish as huge and smelly as Abramoff a chance to toss the hook unless they really were confident he could haul in some even bigger fish.
Baron Elmo
That Abramoff. A crook and a scumbag, to be sure, but also a very savvy player.
As Burt Lancaster said to Tony Curtis in The Sweet Smell of Success: “I’d hate to take a bite out of you. You’re a cookie loaded with arsenic.”
I hope to see many greedy Congressional swine with their guts in knots of agony after sticking their snouts in Abramoff’s jar of baked goodies.
Bruce Moomaw
I wouldn’t be as fast as Tim to tag this one as “the consuming scandal of 2006”, though. The Bush Administration has turned into the Barnum & Bailey of scandal: if you don’t like the attraction in one ring, there are always two or three equally lively shows going on simultaneously in the others.
T Mag
Abramoff is a savvy player, but there’s no way he’ll be able to drag Congress down with him. He’s a serial liar. He lied about his ties to Congress to get clients, now he lies about Congress to cut a deal. No grand jury will believe him.
Bruce Moomaw
Once again: would the Feds be dumb enough to bail him out in that case? Let’s wait and see how much corroborative evidence he (and they) have got. And keep in mind that what he’s being accused of is bribery, for which you also have to have a bribee.