Unending troubles

Despite calls from the right for "spiritual warfare" in defending the House majority leader against ethics charges, the fate of DeLay Inc. looks grim.

By Sidney Blumenthal

Mar 17, 2005 | As "Still the One" boomed from the loudspeakers, shaking the silverware in the Washington Hilton ballroom Tuesday, the most powerful Republican in Congress, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, appeared on the stage before more than a thousand Republican faithful -- a martyr scourged and flayed by evildoers for his purity of heart. It was his enemies who had the dirty hands. The Democrats are "without power" and "have put style above substance, politics over people, and partisanship over everything." Immediately after being cheered, DeLay held a press conference to denounce the press as purveyors of "fiction and innuendo."

The uncertain fate of the majority leader, known as "The Hammer," and to the Republican members and lobbyists in Washington as "the concierge of Capitol Hill," threatens to undermine the Bush administration's agenda; the political machine DeLay has built by allying special interests, lobbyists and Republicans; and the Republican dominance of Congress. Conservative leader Paul Weyrich pronounced that defending DeLay is nothing less than a life-or-death matter -- "spiritual warfare."

Not once at this Republican conference on tax reform did DeLay mention that he had just minutes earlier escaped from another of his ethical travails. On a party-line vote, the House had just defeated a Democratic measure to create a bipartisan task force "to restore public confidence in the ethics process."

Three times last year DeLay was rebuked by the House ethics committee. But DeLay has more to worry about. Three of his closest aides in Texas are standing trial for criminal campaign-finance violations involving funneling $2.5 million in illegal corporate money from his political action committee to Republican candidates for the state Legislature. (Afterward, the Legislature redistricted congressional seats to eliminate Democrats and consolidate Republican control of the House.)

In response to the possibility that he may face trial himself, DeLay tried to force the House to abolish a GOP rule that requires leaders to step aside temporarily if indicted. But members faced an uproar in their districts and DeLay had to abandon his gambit. As the web of grand juries and trials entangling his closest political associates spreads, his self-protective tactics have become more frantic. Last month, he purged those Republicans from the House ethics committee who had any Hamlet-like hesitations about suppressing further investigations into his activities.

DeLay's troubles reveal the anatomy of his power, known from Texas to Washington as DeLay Inc. By controlling the majority in the House, DeLay has been able to enforce discipline on the vast army of lobbyists, law firms and trade associations in Washington. His K Street Project, named after the nondescript street where many of the lobbyists maintain their offices, attempts to ensure that Democrats will not be hired by lobbyists and law firms, which will kick in maximum campaign contributions or else let their clients suffer the consequences.

In 1999, DeLay received a "private rebuke" from the House ethics committee for punishing the Electronic Industries Alliance for hiring a Democrat to head its Washington office. DeLay sabotaged trade bills that would have benefited the EIA, and soon the group hired a former House Republican staffer, who arranged contributions to DeLay's political action committee. One prominent Republican lobbyist confided to me that DeLay personally upbraided him for hiring a Democrat in his firm. The Republican majority is thus financially supported through strong-arm tactics and quid pro quos, and pursues policies that always serve the demands of special interests -- from the pharmaceutical companies on Medicare, to credit card firms on bankruptcy, to oil, gas and coal companies on energy.

But DeLay's methods are being exposed to daylight. In a civil trial filed by defeated Democratic congressional candidates in Texas against DeLay's political action committee, new documents revealed last week proved he had created the PAC and was directly involved in raising corporate donations that are illegal under Texas law. At a recent press conference DeLay tried to brush aside the indictments of his aides by the Travis County prosecutor as "frivolous" and a "joke." But the prosecutor, when asked, has refused to rule out indicting DeLay.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has impaneled a federal grand jury to hear testimony into possible fraud and public corruption by one of the Washington lobbyists closest to DeLay, Jack Abramoff, and his business partner, public relations executive Michael Scanlon, DeLay's former press secretary. That investigation might yet encompass two other DeLay allies, former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, another business partner of Abramoff's, and Grover Norquist, a lobbyist who organizes conservative groups behind DeLay's initiatives and who has also profited from his dealings with Abramoff. Stalled before the House ethics committee are investigations into trips DeLay took to South Korea and Britain, the latter financed by Abramoff. Both those investigations involve the central figure of DeLay's former chief of staff, now a lobbyist, Ed Buckham.

"I go about my job," DeLay told reporters, trying to distance himself. "Jack Abramoff has his own problems. Any other questions?" In an earlier statement, obviously crafted by his attorneys, DeLay said, "If anybody is trading on my name to get clients or to make money, that is wrong and they should stop it immediately." He's shocked, shocked!

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