Juanita says Tom is having a bad day.
Okay, after Tom DeLay told Chris Matthews last night that his golf outing in Scotland was paid for by a "legitimate conservative organization," Ronnie Earle has issued new subpoenas. Bunches of them. (These official actual subpoenas will open in PDF format.) Hey, just like DeLay, Abramoff may be conservative but he ain't legitimate.
more on the flip...
Apparently last night on Hardball, DeLay
perjured himself dug himself a deeper hole. I guess all Earle had to do was watch DeLay talk to Tweety and wait for him to lie. After all, the facts of who paid for the trip were
already public:
The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.
DeLay's expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham, according to receipts documenting that portion of the trip.
House ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting travel and related expenses from registered lobbyists. DeLay, who is now House majority leader, has said that his expenses on this trip were paid by a nonprofit organization and that the financial arrangements for it were proper. He has also said he had no way of knowing that any lobbyist might have financially supported the trip, either directly or through reimbursements to the nonprofit organization.
In the subpoenas, Earle asks for credit card records of Abramoff and Buckham, among other things. I've not finished reading them but if I find something juicy in there, I'll update.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Really. He's making Earle's job easy. I am thoroughly enjoying this Rethug implosion.
UPDATE: He subpoenas Continental Airlines and British Airways for records relating to the Scotland golf trip and how it was paid for. He also subpoenaed Christine DeLay and former lobbyist Buckham.