Tom DeLay Update

So, as many of you already know, Ronnie Earle rushed to empanel a new grand jury when Tom DeLay's lawyer moved to quash the, uhhh, "indictment" he already had in hand. The reason? The law he was indicted on was passed in 2003. The transaction supposedly violating that law occurred in 2002.

Talk about loose shit. I guess Ronnie Earle was absent the day they taught law in law school.

So now he's seeking a quickie money-laundering charge. It's bullshit, because Texas law states that money laundering occurs when money obtained through illegal means is passed through a front. The money was not raised through illegally, but through perfectly legal means. Whether or not the subsequent transaction was shady is irrelevant. The law applies to criminal proceeds; money laundering just does not apply.

Now the New Editor catches that a third grand jury refused to indict delay. Funny how the media isn't reporting that.

It's also funny that no record of the grand jury's refusal to indict can be found at the courthouse.

Memo to Ronnie Earl: Hope you've already signed all the contracts for your Hollywood Moment. 'Cuzzin' I'm thinking you just jumped the shark.

"The Man Who Almost Got DeLay, But Fucked It All Up Because He Was an Incompetent Hyperpartisan Hack" just isn't a good title.

The Actual Law: JoeInDC44 was on the ball enough to look it up:

PENAL CODE

CHAPTER 34. MONEY LAUNDERING

§ 34.01. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:

§ 34.02. MONEY LAUNDERING. (a) A person commits an
offense if the person knowingly:
(1) acquires or maintains an interest in, receives,
conceals, possesses, transfers, or transports the proceeds of
criminal activity;
(2) conducts, supervises, or facilitates a
transaction involving the proceeds of criminal activity; or
(3) invests, expends, or receives, or offers to
invest, expend, or receive, the proceeds of criminal activity or
funds that the person believes are the proceeds of criminal
activity.

Oh, there's some bullshit argument that can be made, I guess, that if you know in advance you're raising money with the intent to subvert campaign finance laws you are, constructively, raising money via "criminal activity."

Trouble is, that's a stretch, and besides, there was no law on the books to subvert in 2002, when the transaction complained of actually occurred.

Once again: that law was passed in 2003.

So that's gonna be a hard argument to make. "See, the accused knew what he was doing was legal, but he also knew a year later it wouldn't be, so by acting in 2002 rather than 2003, he was criminally conspiring to subvert a law which wasn't in effect yet but which later would be."

I think I saw a similar line of argument in the new Law & Order franchise, Law & Order: Special Retard-Law Unit. "The criminal justice system is made up of two equally important groups: the police who arrest the criminals, and the retarded lawyers who drool over their memos as they comically attempt to prosecute them..."

Retard-lawyers don't win many cases, but they work cheap. They're paid in tapioca.

posted by Ace at 04:34 PM

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