[quote]vroom wrote:
This might be interesting background information for some…
‘The Big Buy’ spent two years tracking Ronnie Earle
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15375881&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=484045&rfi=6
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Texas filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck planted themselves on history?s doorstep two years ago when they started filming Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle as he investigated Congressman Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land) and his Political Action Committee, Texans for a Republican Majority.
MB: I gotta say that the story we sought to tell was not exactly dramatic, but we thought it was important, that plan that began with [the Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee] to dominate politics in the state of Texas and ultimately in the United States by first winning these elections in 2002, the state elections, then pushing through off-year redistricting, redrawing the map, so that in 2004 they could win a majority in Congress a perfectly legal plan, all according to the way the system is supposed to work, but for one alleged fact: For the first step of their plan, to win the 2002 elections in Texas, they used corporate money for political purposes a felony since 1905. And when Ronnie found out about that, he said, You can?t do that. It?s against the law.
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This might be interesting background for others – not available online:
Ronnie vs. Tom
The real fight behind the DeLay case
BYRON YORK
There’s no all-purpose guidebook for such things, but generally when a Washington official is indicted, he confidently proclaims his innocence and then announces ? with great regret ? that he will not be able to say anything more about the case. That’s how it’s usually done, but it’s not how House majority leader Tom DeLay chose to do it.
“This morning, in an act of blatant political partisanship, a rogue district attorney in Travis County, Texas, named Ronnie Earle charged me with one count of criminal conspiracy,” DeLay told reporters in Washington on September 28, hours after he was accused of campaign-finance-related violations. The indictment, DeLay continued, was “a reckless charge wholly unsupported by the facts. This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. It’s a sham, and Mr. Earle knows it.”
With that, DeLay pretty much set the stage for what will be known in the courtroom as The State of Texas vs. Thomas Dale DeLay, but will be known everywhere else as Ronnie vs. Tom.
In one way, Earle opened himself up to the attack by choosing to include almost no evidence against DeLay, not only in the first indictment of DeLay on conspiracy charges, but also in a hastily drawn second indictment on money-laundering charges handed up on October 3 (many of the crimes alleged in the indictment are said to have occurred on October 4, 2002, and Earle was apparently rushing to press charges before the three-year statute of limitations expired). Indeed, one can read both documents and still be unable to discern what Earle has actually accused DeLay of doing, other than being part of something that allegedly violated a Texas law against corporate political contributions.
It was that very lack of specificity ? coupled with the arcane nature of the law involved ? that allowed DeLay to turn the indictments into a question about Ronnie Earle. If there had been clear, solid evidence of misconduct in the charges, then the public and the press would have had actual facts to work with, some grounds on which to say that DeLay did wrong. But there wasn’t. So now it is the congressman versus the prosecutor. And the early rounds appear to go to . . . the congressman.
For years, at least as long as the investigation has been going on, DeLay’s defenders have portrayed Earle, an elected Democrat, as a partisan prosecutor out to bring down a strong Republican leader. To support that charge, they point to Earle’s high-profile indictment of Republican senator Kay Bailey Hutchison ? a charge that was thrown out of court in what was undoubtedly Earle’s greatest professional failure ? as well as Earle’s attendance at a May 12, 2005, fundraiser in Dallas for a Democratic group called the Texas Values in Action Coalition. That organization was formed to “raise campaign money and take control of the state legislature from the GOP,” according to the article in the Houston Chronicle that originally reported Earle’s presence at the event. In his remarks there, Earle talked about the DeLay investigation. “This case is not just about Tom DeLay,” he said. “If it isn’t this Tom DeLay, it’ll be another one, just like one bully replaces the one before.”
For their part, Earle’s defenders point out that he has prosecuted more Democratic politicians than Republicans, although all of the Democrats were smaller fry than DeLay and Hutchison. But there may be another explanation.
Of course Earle is a Democrat. He wants to see Democrats win elections. But in his prosecution he may be driven by a passion that exceeds even partisanship: an almost evangelical desire to rid the political system of what he believes is the evil influence of money. Combine that with Earle’s well-known taste for publicity, and you have a potent mix.
Both are on display in a new movie, The Big Buy, by two Texas filmmakers, Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck. Earle gave the team what Birnbaum called “extraordinary access” to his office during the DeLay investigation. The resulting movie ? it’s being finished now, but National Review obtained an advance copy ? bills itself as a “crime story,” with DeLay as the criminal and Earle as the cop.
A cop ? and a preacher. “The root of the evil of the corporate and large-moneyed-interest domination of politics is money,” Earle says in the film. “This is in the Bible. This isn’t rocket science. The root of all evil truly is money, especially in politics. People talk about how money is the mother’s milk of politics. Well, it’s the devil’s brew. And what we’ve got to do, we’ve got to turn off the tap.” (When the film finally comes out, many viewers will undoubtedly point out that the Bible says it is the love of money that is the problem, not the simple existence of money, but the scene underscores Earle’s sense of righteousness as he approaches the DeLay prosecution.)
In The Big Buy, Earle also describes corporate political contributions, which are outlawed in Texas, as “every bit as insidious as terrorism.” He also suggests that other crimes ? he mentions murder, rape, robbery, theft, and child abuse ? might spring from alleged misdeeds like DeLay’s. “It’s hard to see the connection between the abuse of the democratic process and dealing crack, for example, or robbing a 7-11,” Earle says, “but there is a connection, and my people are beginning to understand that.”
Finally, Earle believes that he, Ronnie Earle, is the man to spread the message. “I feel great pressure to get the information to the public,” he says, “to point, to set a tone and to point a direction, and to say which hill needs to be taken.”
The Ronnie Earle that emerges from The Big Buy is a man with an unshakable determination that he is right and an almost messianic desire to spread the word. What he has beyond most other people who share those traits is the ability to use the power of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office. And use it he will. “It’s important that we forgive those who come to us in a spirit of contrition and the desire for forgiveness,” he explains in the movie. “But if they don’t, then God help them.” (The film then dissolves to a picture of DeLay.)
Now, it may turn out that Earle has some compelling evidence against DeLay that only he knows about. But in public at least, his case looks weak, which may end up helping the man Earle wants to convict. In the long run, of course, if DeLay is not guilty, he might well be strengthened by having been unfairly attacked. And even in the short run, Earle’s indictment might be a benefit for its target.
In this way: Many Republicans, both in Washington and in Texas, are concerned about DeLay’s connections to the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, now under indictment for some alleged crimes and under investigation for a variety of others. Some who might otherwise be DeLay allies know that Abramoff is bad news, and they are wary of DeLay’s ties to him: Last April, National Review’s editors wrote, “You can choose your friends, and DeLay’s supporters cringe to see sleazy insiders like Jack Abramoff profiting from their relationship with him.” Given that, few conservative commentators have been inclined to support DeLay, for the simple reason that they didn’t know what other evidence might exist to tie him to Abramoff.
That’s where Ronnie Earle comes in. By indicting DeLay on one specific, limited, and possibly unjustified charge, Earle has allowed DeLay’s reticent allies to defend him on that one specific, limited, and possibly unjustified charge. And right now, DeLay is happy to get the help.
That’s surely not what Ronnie Earle had in mind, but it is the practical effect of The State of Texas vs. Thomas Dale DeLay.