SHBA: Skandal i udheheqesit te mazhorances republikane ne Kongres, Tom DeLay

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DeLay përballet me akuza

BBCAlbnianan.com

Një aleat i rëndësishëm i presidentit Bush është akuzuar për konspiracion, pasi siç thuhet, ka siguruar fonde financiare në mënyrë ilegale në Teksas.


Kongresmeni Tom DeLay menjëherë bëri të ditur se po largohej si udhëheqës i republikanëve në Kongresin amerikan.
Ai tha se nuk kishte bërë asgjë gabim dhe se akuzat ishin të motivuara politikisht.
"Ky akt është produkt i fushatës së koordinuar të paramenduar, rezultat i një hetimi plot urrejtje të drejtuar nga një fanatik partizan. Një prokuror i zonës së Texasit, Ronnie Earle më akuzoi me konspiracion kriminal, një akuzë që nuk përkrahet nga fakte. Kjo është një nga paditë më të dobëta e të pabaza në historinë amerikane. Është një turp dhe zoti Earle e di atë."
...............

Ky lajm eshte keqinterpretuar, DeLay u detyrua te zbrese nga posti perkohesisht.

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Lajmi ne anglisht:

Delay Is Indicted in Texas Case and Forfeits G.O.P. House Post

NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader and a driving Republican power in Washington, was forced to step aside from his leadership post on Wednesday after a grand jury in Texas indicted him on a charge of conspiring to violate election laws in his home state.

The indictment, in Travis County, which includes Austin, the state capital, accused him of conspiring with two previously indicted aides to violate a century-old Texas ban on the use of corporate money by state political candidates, by funneling thousands of dollars in corporate contributions through the Republican National Committee.

House Republicans gathered within hours of the indictment's becoming public, and chose Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 3 House Republican, to assume Mr. DeLay's duties temporarily. They assigned Representative David Dreier of California to take on more responsibilities. Party rules required Mr. DeLay to step down if indicted.

Earlier in the day, there had been indications that Mr. Dreier might be named to Mr. DeLay's place temporarily, which did not sit well with some House conservatives. But a Congressional aide said Wednesday night that Speaker J. Dennis Hastert had already chosen Mr. Blunt before the conservatives voiced their objections.

At a news conference in his office, Mr. DeLay described the veteran Democratic prosecutor who brought the indictment - Ronnie Earle, the Travis County district attorney - as a "partisan fanatic" leading a "coordinated, premeditated campaign of political retribution." Mr. DeLay said he had done nothing wrong.

"I have violated no law, no regulation, no rule of the House," Mr. DeLay, who is in his 11th term, told reporters, adding: "My defense in this case will not be technical or legalistic; it will be categorical and absolute. I am innocent."

House Republicans rallied to the defense of their leader, a shrewd political force who is credited with using his hard-edge skills to maintain the Republicans' hold on the House and to advance the conservative Republican agenda.

Mr. DeLay and his allies described the one conspiracy count against him as motivated by anger over his role in a state redistricting plan that sent five new Texas Republicans to Congress after their party took control of the Statehouse in 2002. Mr. DeLay's actions in Texas during the 2002 campaign are the focus of the indictment issued Wednesday. If convicted, he could face up to two years in prison.

"Tom DeLay's effectiveness as majority leader is the best explanation for what happened in Texas today," Mr. Blunt said. "I'm confident that a full explanation of the facts in this case will clear Tom's name and return him to his position as majority leader."

But many Republicans also acknowledged that the indictment was of grave concern, adding to a litany of misconduct accusations centered on Republicans in Congress, including Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and at the White House.

"It may be a witch hunt, but it is a huge problem," Representative Zach Wamp, Republican of Tennessee, said of the conspiracy charge. "He will probably be exonerated in the long term, but that is a long time."

The indictment was another setback for the Republican majority, which has been reeling in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration's handling of the initial relief effort and internal divisions about how extensive the recovery plan should be.

Democrats who have long sparred with Mr. DeLay and come out on the losing end say his indictment reinforces their view that the Republican majority has lost its ethical bearings.
"The criminal indictment of Majority Leader Tom DeLay is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people," said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader.
For years, first as the House majority whip and then the majority leader, Mr. DeLay has been an aggressive partisan as well as a proponent of socially conservative ideas. When others were urging that Republicans drop the idea of impeaching President Bill Clinton in 1998, Mr. DeLay almost single-handedly kept up the pressure that led to the House impeachment vote.

Anticipating the possibility that Mr. DeLay could be indicted in the Texas case, House Republicans last year dropped an internal party rule that required a party leader to step down if indicted on a felony charge. But lawmakers encountered serious criticism of the change from members of the public and Democratic critics who saw it as a backward step, and they reversed the decision.

During their private session Wednesday to replace Mr. DeLay, some Republicans complained that the rule was an open invitation to prosecutors to lodge an indictment and influence the makeup of the leadership of Congress.
At the White House, the chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, said President Bush continued to see Mr. DeLay as a "good ally" and as "a leader we have worked closely with to get things done for the American people."
Asked about the indictment, Mr. McClellan said, "The president's view is that we need to let the legal process work."

Mr. DeLay has been a linchpin of Republican success over the past decade, since playing a role in the Republican takeover of the House in 1994. He is often called the Hammer in print for his hard-nosed approach, though it is not a nickname anyone uses with Mr. DeLay himself.
Instead, he has built his loyalty among Republican members by raising money for them and looking out for their legislative interests.

The indictment in Travis County was brought against Mr. DeLay; James W. Ellis, the head of Mr. DeLay's national political committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, or Armpac; and John D. Colyandro, the former head of Texans for a Republican Majority, a state political action committee. Mr. Ellis and Mr. Colyandro were also indicted last September on related charges.

The new indictment centered on Mr. DeLay's involvement with Texans for a Republican Majority, which he created with his aides in 2001 and which was modeled on Armpac.
During his career in the House, Mr. DeLay has used Armpac to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate donations for other Republican candidates, who in turn showed their loyalty to Mr. DeLay by electing him to the House leadership.

With the Texas committee, Mr. DeLay mapped a Republican takeover of his home state's Legislature, which the party achieved in 2002. The victory allowed Republicans to redraw Congressional districts in Texas, making it easier to elect Republicans to the House and solidifying Mr. DeLay's power in Congress.

In the indictment on Wednesday, prosecutors essentially accused Mr. DeLay and his aides of engineering their 2002 victory in Texas through money laundering - specifically, by violating a state law that bars companies from donating to individual candidates. The law is a legacy of struggles at the turn of the last century between farmers and ranchers on the one hand and so-called corporate robber barons eager to seize their lands.

The indictment charged that $155,000 in donations to the committee from six companies, including Sears Roebuck and Bacardi, the rum maker, were put into a bank account along with other money raised by Texans for a Republican Majority.

In September 2002, the indictment shows, the committee sent a check for $190,000 drawn from that account to the Republican National Committee in Washington. The check, which is reproduced in the indictment, was made out to the Republican National State Elections Committee, which oversees state races for the national party.

The indictment charged that Mr. Ellis, Mr. DeLay's aide, then provided Terry Nelson, President Bush's political director in his 2004 campaign and a Republican National Committee official, with a list of state Republican candidates in Texas who were to receive money, along with the amount of money for each.

The indictment suggests that the proceeds from the $190,000 check were then laundered back to Texas in the form of donations to the seven Republican candidates, in violation of the state's corporate money ban.

Mr. Earle, the Travis County prosecutor, had suggested as recently as a few weeks ago that he did not expect to indict Mr. DeLay, and lawyers and law enforcement officials in Austin speculated Wednesday that he must have obtained the cooperation of an important witness in deciding to bring charges.

At a news conference in Austin, Mr. Earle would not comment on details of the indictment, which was approved by the grand jury on its last day before disbanding.
Texas is not the only place Mr. DeLay's conduct is being scrutinized. He has called for a House ethics committee review of travel brought into question for potential violation of House rules, and he also figures in federal investigations of Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist and onetime DeLay confidant.

Mr. DeLay was also rebuked three times last year by the House ethics committee for fund-raising abuses and misuse of government agencies, a series of actions that ensnarled the committee in a fight over procedural changes sought by Republicans in the wake of the DeLay decisions. The chairman who oversaw the investigations, Representative Joel Hefley, Republican of Colorado, was also replaced.

"I think it's unfortunate for everybody, particularly for Tom, and I hope there's nothing to it," Mr. Hefley said of the indictment. "We'll just have to play it out and see."
David D. Kirkpatrick and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting from Washington for this article, and Nate Levy from Austin, Tex.

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DeLay blasts indictment



WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rep. Tom DeLay went on the attack after his indictment on a conspiracy charge, blasting a Texas prosecutor and rejecting the allegation that forced him to give up the House leadership as "blatant political partisanship."

CNN.com

A Texas grand jury charged DeLay Wednesday with conspiring to illegally funnel corporate cash to state Republicans in 2002, and party rules forced DeLay to abandon his leadership post.

DeLay told reporters he was the victim of a partisan vendetta by the Democratic district attorney in Austin, Ronnie Earle. "My defense in this case will not be technical or legalistic. It will be categorical and absolute," he said. "I am innocent. Mr. Earle and his staff know it, and I will prove it."

House Republicans met Wednesday to choose a new leader for their conference, naming Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri their temporary leader. Deputy Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia and Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier of California will also share in the duties.

DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, said the congressman "has nothing to hide" and wants a trial "before the end of the year.""There's no crime that's been committed," DeGuerin said. "I am confident that, when we get to trial, we'll show that Tom DeLay did nothing wrong."

Reaction in Washington to DeLay's indictment broke down along party lines.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean took the opportunity to draw attention to other GOP controversies. "With House Republican leader Tom DeLay under criminal indictment, Senate Republican leader [Bill] Frist facing SEC and Department of Justice investigations and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove under investigation, the Republican leadership in Washington is now spending more time answering questions about ethical misconduct than doing the people's business," Dean said in a statement.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, described congressional Republicans as "plagued by a culture of corruption." But Republicans offered support for DeLay. New York Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said prosecutor Earle "has been incapable of separating his personal politics from his professional responsibilities." "Democrats resent Tom DeLay because he routinely defeats them -- both politically and legislatively," he said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan lauded DeLay as a "good ally" of President Bush and said of the indictment: "The president's view is that we need to let the legal process work."

Earle denied any partisan motivation, telling reporters in Austin that 12 of the 15 public corruption cases he has prosecuted involved Democrats.
Earle's record on high-profile corruption cases is mixed.

A 1994 case against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a Republican, was tossed out of court on the first day of trial, and Democratic Attorney General Jim Mattox was acquitted in 1985.
But House Speaker Gib Lewis, a Democrat, pleaded no contest to ethics charges in 1992, and several cases against lower-profile officials have resulted in convictions, Earle said.
Nicknamed "The Hammer" during his tenure as GOP whip, DeLay has been the Republican leader in the House of Representatives since 2002. He has represented a suburban Houston district in the House since 1985.

The grand jury in Austin charged DeLay, 58, and two associates who already faced criminal charges with a single count of criminal conspiracy, alleging they improperly steered corporate donations to Republican candidates for the Texas legislature in 2002.
The 2002 races led to GOP control of the state legislature and a controversial mid-census redistricting effort that bolstered Republican control of Congress.

DeLay called Earle "a partisan fanatic" bent on punishing him for that success.
If convicted, DeLay could face up to two years in prison and fines up to $10,000.

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Chronology: House Majority Leader DeLay

NYTimes.com


1984: Elected to represent the 22nd District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives.

1994: Elected majority whip.

July 1997: DeLay was part of a group that tried, but failed, to oust House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

October 1998: DeLay attacks the Electronics Industries Alliance for hiring former Democratic Rep. Dave McCurdy as its president and later receives a private rebuke from the House ethics committee.

November 2002: Re-elected to the House.

2003: Elected majority leader without opposition.

September 2004: Grand jurors in Texas indict three DeLay associates Jim Ellis, John Colyandro, and Warren RoBold in an investigation of alleged illegal corporate contributions to a political action committee associated with him. The investigation involved the alleged use of corporate funds to aid Republican candidates for the Texas legislature in the 2002 elections.

September-October 2004: DeLay is admonished by the House ethics committee on three separate issues. The committee chastised DeLay for offering to support the House candidacy of Michigan Republican Rep. Nick Smith's son in return for the lawmaker's vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. The panel said DeLay created the appearance of linking political donations to a legislative favor, and that he had improperly sought the Federal Aviation Administration's intervention in a Texas political dispute.

January 2005: House Republicans reverse a controversial rule passed in November 2004 that would have allowed DeLay to keep his leadership post if he were indicted.

March 2005: Media reports spur Democrats to question DeLay's relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation. Delay has asked the House ethics committee to review allegations that Abramoff or his clients paid some of DeLay's overseas travel expenses. DeLay has denied knowing that the expenses were paid by Abramoff.

April 2005: House Republicans scrap controversial new ethics committee rules passed earlier in the year that would have made it harder to proceed with an ethics investigation. Democrats charged the rules were meant to protect DeLay.

September 2005: Ellis and Colyandro are indicted on additional felony charges of violating Texas election law and criminal conspiracy to violate election law for their role in 2002 legislative races.






Padia ndaj Tom DeLay:

http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs...y92805ind.html

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For G.O.P., DeLay Indictment Adds to a Sea of Troubles

NYtimes.com

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - This is not what the Republicans envisioned 11 months ago, when they were returned to office as a powerful one-party government with a big agenda and - it seemed - little to fear from the opposition.

The indictment of Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, on Wednesday was the latest in a series of scandals and setbacks that have buffeted Republican leaders in Congress and the Bush administration, and transformed what might have been a victory lap into a hard political scramble. Republicans are still managing to score some victories - notably, Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s expected confirmation as chief justice of the United States on Thursday - but their governing majority is showing signs of strain.

In the House, Mr. DeLay's indictment removes, even if temporarily, a powerful leader who managed to eke out, again and again, narrow majorities on some difficult votes. In the Senate, Republican ranks have been roiled this week by an investigation of Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, who is under scrutiny for his stock dealings from a blind trust.

Moreover, the string of ethical issues so close together - including the indictment and continuing investigation of the Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was close to Mr. DeLay, and the arrest of David H. Safavian, a former White House budget official who was charged with lying to investigators and obstructing a federal inquiry involving Mr. Abramoff - is a source of anxiety in Republican circles.

"Even though DeLay has nothing to do with Frist, and Frist has nothing to do with Abramoff, how does it look? Not good," said William Kristol, a key conservative strategist and editor of The Weekly Standard.

At the same time, the White House is grappling with a criminal investigation into whether anyone leaked the name of a C.I.A. operative, an inquiry that has brought both Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, and I. Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, before a grand jury.

And the administration is struggling to steady itself after the slow response to Hurricane Katrina and defend itself against sweeping accusations of incompetence and cronyism in domestic security.

Joe Gaylord, a longtime Republican consultant and an adviser to Newt Gingrich when he was House speaker, said, "When you couple Iraq, Katrina, DeLay in the House, Frist in the Senate," and other ethical flaps, "it looks like 10 years is a long time for a party to be in power." "And when you add to that gas prices and home-heating prices that are going through the ceiling this winter, it shouldn't give much comfort to the Republicans," Mr. Gaylord said. Such a wave of internal trouble is characteristic of a president's second term, particularly when his party controls Congress.

"We know that second terms have historically been marred by hubris and by scandal," said David R. Gergen, a former aide to presidents in both parties who is now director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
"We've seen the hubris," Mr. Gergen added, alluding to Mr. Bush's effort to restructure Social Security, now stalled. "And now we're seeing the scandals."

Ross K. Baker, an expert on Congress and a political science professor at Rutgers, argues that the lack of normal checks and balances, with each party controlling part of the government, is also a problem.

"What you're stuck with is oversight as a product of scandal, a product of catastrophe," Mr. Baker said. "It requires a blunder of major proportions, a calamity that is poorly addressed, before you get oversight."

Others say the intense competition of current politics - the ferocious ideological divisions combined with the narrowness of any majority - leads to a heightened emphasis on money and, perhaps, a bending of the rules to get it.

"We've constantly had leaders going down in the last 20 years for related issues," said Julian Zelizer, an expert on Congress at Boston University. "Those who are successful, there's a high chance they've pushed the boundaries of money in politics as far as they can go."

In recent months, conservatives have bemoaned the effects of power on their movement, like mounting deficits and ethics problems.

In the 10th anniversary issue of The Weekly Standard last month, Andrew Ferguson lamented the "ease with which the stalwarts commandeered the greasy machinery of Washington power." "Conservative activists came to Washington to do good and stayed to do well," Mr. Ferguson said. "The grease rubbed off, too."

Eleven years ago, the Republicans took control of Congress - breaking a 40-year Democratic reign in the House - by campaigning as reformers out to derail a Democratic machine that Mr. Gingrich described as endemically, irredeemably corrupt. In fact, as the 1994 election approached, the Democrats endured several ethics scandals, including the fall of a speaker, a majority whip and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Now the Democrats are reaching for the reformers' mantle. More and more, they attack the Republicans as a party riddled with corruption and out of touch with the problems and concerns of ordinary Americans.

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, telegraphed the assault in an interview on Wednesday. "Their party has run out of both legitimacy and intellectual steam," he said.

A year before the midterm elections, the polls show Congress with a strikingly low approval rating - 34 percent in the most recent New York Times/CBS News Poll, conducted from Sept. 9 to 13. One Republican strategist, who asked not to be identified because of his work with Republicans on Capitol Hill, said of the DeLay indictment: "When you pile it on top of everything else - Iraq, Katrina, gas prices - it's pretty grim. We're still waiting for some sign of good news, something our candidates can run on. This isn't it."

The strategist added: "The Democrats will make the case that Republicans are too busy dealing with their own ethical issues to care about the problems facing the country. And guess what? That charge worked pretty well for us in '92 and '94."
Whether Democrats will be able to make that case is another question; they have internal problems of their own, notably their chronic problem in unifying around a clear message , a challenge the Republicans met with the Contract With America.
But for the Republican majority, the problem in many ways is not the challenge from without, but the second-term problems within.

[Alket123]

Nje tjeter skandal nga Texas. Senatori republikan i kapur duke ngare makinen i pire, nqs gjendet fajtor mund te denohet 1 vit burg.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/10/11/congressman.dui.ap/

[Alket123]

Per senatorin republikan amerikan Tom Delay eshte dhene urdher arresti.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/....ap/index.html

Bail eshte vene ne 10 mije dollare sa per formalitet.

[niku-nyc]

Shum korrupsion nga Republikanet dhe ato $10,000 per bail per Tom Delay sjan asgjo pasi deri tashti kishte perqor shuma te madhe parash te qeveris per pushime dhe gjera te tjera...Ket here ka shpetuar sepse denimi per korrupsionesht shum i rende por ket here e kan liruar sepse ai esht shum i njohur dhe shum njerez qe njef ne pushtet, qeveri, gjyqtar...

[Alket123]

Shum korrupsion nga Republikanet dhe ato $10,000 per bail per Tom Delay sjan asgjo

Shuma 10,000 dollare eshte thjesht nje formalitet gjyqi. Shuma vihet e madhe kur dihet ky person mund te i iki drejtesise. Tom Delay ska ku te fluturoje.

Bail vihet psh. 2 milion dollare per nje mafioz. I cili per ato para po gjykohet, ato para qe mund te i keni kushtuar jeten atij nje dite te rrezikshme ne karrieren e tij. Ato para jane jeta e tij.

Tom Delay gjen para plot ne te ardhmen. Tom Delay eshte nje njeri qe e ka provuar veten di si te beje karriere. Tom Delay eshte politikan, mbase halabak politikan nese provohet e vertete akuzat.

Mafiozi eshte halabak 100% shpeton vetem nga mungese provash ne gjyq apo genjeshtra te deshmimtareve te cilat cojne ne mistrial.
E kupton pse politikaneve tip Delay iu vihet bail kaq i ulet?

[Alket123]

Fundi po i del!


Karl Rove eshte personi qe do kete thene me te qeshur "Ai e di kete punen e uraniumit me sepse gruaja e tij eshte agjente CIA's" ne menyre talljeje gazetares ne interviste.

Ne kete moment Karl Rove ka bere nje shkelje ligji i cili denon cdo antar ose ish-antar qeveritar apo politikan te ekspozojne anonimitetin e nje spiuni apo agjenti.

komente shtypi
http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20...NlYwMlJVRPUCUl