Originally published October 15 2005
House Majority Leader indicted in fundraising scam
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Forced to step down from his position as House Majority leader, Republican Tom DeLay faces a felony charge for conspiring with John Colyandro and Jim Ellis to help Republicans take over the 2001 House of Representatives in Texas.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury Wednesday on a charge of conspiring to violate political fundraising laws, forcing him to temporarily step aside from his GOP post.
He is the highest-ranking member of Congress to face criminal prosecution.
Nonetheless, DeLay's temporary departure and the prospect of a criminal trial for one of the Republicans' most visible leaders reverberated throughout the GOP-run Congress, which was already struggling with ethics questions surrounding its Senate leader.
Full Image Ronnie Earle, the Democratic prosecutor in Austin who led the investigation, denied politics was involved.
They are John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.
The indictment stems from a plan DeLay helped set in motion in 2001 to help Republicans win control of the Texas House in the 2002 elections for the first time since Reconstruction.
The grand jury accused the men of conspiring to route corporate donations from DeLay's Texas committee to the Republican Party in Washington, then returning the money back to Texas legislative candidates.
It was a scheme intended to evade a state law outlawing corporate donations going to candidates, the indictment said.
The indictment also mentioned another Republican figure, President Bush's campaign political director Terry Nelson, though it did not charge him with any wrongdoing.
DeLay and others conspired to "engage in conduct that would constitute the offense of knowingly making a political contribution in violation" of Texas law, the indictment charged.
DeLay, whose conduct on separate issues was criticized by the House ethics committee last year, was unrelenting in his criticism of Earle.
He suggested the district attorney had promised not to prosecute him and then changed course under pressure from Democrats and criticism from a newspaper in Texas.
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