← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Gabrielle
Thread ID: 20620 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2005-10-12
2005-10-12 10:05 | User Profile
October 06, 2005, 7:33 a.m. Ronnie Earle Should Not Be a Prosecutor The abuses of power in the Tom DeLay case should offend Democrats and Republicans alike.
If there is one thing liberals and conservatives ought to be able to agree on, it is this: Ronnie Earle, district attorney of Travis County, Texas, has no business wielding the enormous powers of prosecution.
I don't know Congressman Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader. I certainly don't know if he's done anything illegal, let alone something so illegal as to warrant indictment. It doesn't look like it — and at least one grand jury has already refused to indict him (a fact Earle appears to have tried to conceal from the public as he scrambled to find a new grand jury that would). Yet experience shows it is foolhardy for those who don't know all the facts to hazard a judgment about such things.
One thing is sure, though, and it ought to make anyone who cares about basic fairness angry. The investigation of DeLay, a matter of national gravity is being pursued with shocking ethical bankruptcy by the district attorney — by Ronnie Earle.
For nearly 20 years, I had the privilege of being a prosecutor in the best law-enforcement office in the United States, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Being a prosecutor is the world's greatest job because it is honest work for the highest cause — service to one's own community. And it is work that has precious little to do with politics.
In their private lives, many of my fellow government lawyers were political independents, either by design (i.e., out of a conscious rectitude holding that law enforcement should be above politics) or because they were just apolitical. Most, as one would expect in New York, were Democrats. A large percentage, as, again, one would expect from a group of mostly young people educated in top schools, was proudly liberal. Over coffee, or lunch, or dinner, they and we few, hardy conservatives would have spirited debates over all manner of issues.
In the four corners of a case, however, none of that mattered a wit. Within those four corners, there were rules and responsibilities. There was recognition that prosecutors have breathtaking power over the lives of those they investigate. Power inarguably vital to the rule of law. But power which, if used recklessly or maliciously, can leave lives in tatters. The lives not only of the innocent and the guilty, but of the justice system itself.
This was especially so in investigations of political corruption. We prosecuted Republicans and Democrats, in about equal measure. The cases were hard, but checking your politics at the door was never hard, for at least two reasons.
First, there tends to be nothing ideological about the crimes committed by politicians. They are a stew of pettiness, greed and above-it-all arrogance over which neither party has a monopoly, and the offensiveness of which cuts across philosophical divides.
Second, some wrongs are simply not intended to be crimes. Among them are political wrongs: sleazy abuses of power, cronyism, most acts of nepotism, half-truths or outright lies in campaigns, etc. In a free society, these get sorted out in our bumptious political system. Usually, absent shades of financial fraud, bribery, and extortion, prosecutors should stay their hands. There are too many real crimes to waste resources on that sort of thing. More significantly, the risk of criminalizing politics would only discourage honest citizens from participating in matters of public concern.
The code prosecutors live by is not a liberal or conservative one. It is a code of ethics — of nonpartisan, non-ideological honor. Of course many prosecutors are ambitious. Of course prosecutors want to win. But even the ambitious ones who care a bit too much about winning quickly learn that success is intimately tied to doing things the right way. And not least because that is the norm their colleagues follow — as well as the standard by which the defense bar and the judiciary (populated by no small percentage of former prosecutors) scrutinize them. It is, moreover, the standard the public demands they meet.
People want to see the guilty convicted, but they also want to feel good about the way it is done. The prosecutor is the public's lawyer, and his duty is not merely to get the job done but to get it done right. The second part is just as crucial as the first. They are equal parts of doing justice. No one expects perfection, which is unattainable in any human endeavor. But if the outcomes of the justice system are to be regarded as legitimate, as befitting a decent society, people have to be confident that if they stood accused, the prosecutor would enforce their rights and make sure they got a fair fight.
So there are certain things that are just flat-out verboten. Most basic are these: to resist public comment about non-public, investigative information; to abjure any personal stake in the litigation that could suggest decisions regarding the public interest are being made to suit the prosecutor's private interests; and — if all that is not Sesame Street simple enough — to remain above any financial or political entanglement that could render one's objectivity and judgment suspect.
In the profession, these things come under the hoary rubric of "avoiding the appearance of impropriety." In layman's terms, they are about having an I.Q. high enough that you know to put your socks on before your shoes. This is bedrock stuff. It is central to the presumption of innocence, due process, and equal protection under the law that prosecutors owe even the most despicable offenders. It is foundational to the integrity of the system on which rest our security, our economy, and our freedoms.
And Ronnie Earle has flouted it in embarrassing, mind-numbingly brazen ways.
As Byron York has been reporting on NRO (see here, here, and here), Earle has partnered up with producers making a movie, called The Big Buy, about his Ahab's pursuit of DeLay. A movie about a real investigation? Giving filmmakers access to investigative information while a secret grand-jury probe is underway? Allowing them to know who is being investigated and why? To view proposed indictments even before the grand jury does? Allowing them into the sanctuary of the grand jury room, and actually to film grand jurors themselves? Creating a powerful incentive — in conflict with the duty of evenhandedness — to bring charges on flimsy evidence? For a prosecutor, these aren't just major lapses. They are firing offenses. For prosecutors such as those I worked with over the years, from across the political spectrum, I daresay they'd be thought firing-squad offenses.
Attending partisan fundraisers in order to speak openly about an ongoing grand jury investigation against an uncharged public official. As a moneymaking vehicle.
Penning a nakedly partisan op-ed (in the New York Times on November 23, 2004) about the political fallout of his grand-jury investigation of DeLay, then uncharged.
Settling cases by squeezing businesses to make hefty financial contributions to pet personal causes in exchange for exercising the public's power to dismiss charges.
Secretly shopping for new grand juries when, despite the incalculable advantages the prosecution has in that forum, the earlier grand jurors have found the case too weak to indict.
Ignoring the commission by members of his own party of the same conduct that he seeks to brand felonious when engaged in by members of the other party.
Such actions and tactics are reprehensible. They constitute inexcusably dishonorable behavior on the part of a public servant, regardless of whether the persons and entities investigated were in the wrong. They warrant universal censure.
If Congressman DeLay did something illegal, he, like anyone else, should be called to account. But he, like anyone else, is entitled to procedural fairness, including a prosecutor who not only is, but also appears to be, fair and impartial.
Ronnie Earle is not that prosecutor. He has disgraced his profession, and done grievous disservice to thousands of federal, state, and local government attorneys. Prosecutors of all persuasions whose common bond is a good faith commitment to the rules — but who will now bear the burden of suspicions fostered by Earle's excesses.
The burden, but not the cost. That will be borne by the public.
— Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
[url]http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200510060733.asp[/url]
2005-10-12 10:10 | User Profile
The DeLay Case: Lawyers Intend to Subpoena Makers of The Big Buy They ask: What did Ronnie Earle say in the outtakes?
Lawyers representing a co-defendant of indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay have sent a letter to the makers of a new film about the DeLay investigation, saying they will seek a subpoena that would order the filmmakers to turn over a copy of the film and all unused footage from the project.
The Big Buy chronicles Travis County, Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle as he pursued the investigation that led to DeLay's indictment on conspiracy charges last week and on money-laundering charges yesterday. Filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck describe the film as "a Texas noir political detective story" about the Earle/DeLay investigation.
The still-unfinished picture, obtained last week by National Review Online, includes extensive interviews with Earle, who discusses his motivation in pursuing DeLay on charges that the House Majority Leader allegedly directed an operation in which corporate contributions were used illegally in Texas campaigns. "The root of the evil of the corporate and large-monied 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."
The Big Buy also includes video shot inside the Travis County grand-jury room, as well as inside Earle's office during a meeting of the district attorney's staff. Last week, Birnbaum told National Review Online that Earle had granted the filmmakers "extraordinary access" to the investigation.
Now, an attorney for Jim Ellis, a DeLay codefendant who runs ARMPAC, or Americans for a Republican Majority, has sent a letter to Birnbaum saying, "We intend to seek to subpoena all of the raw footage (whether digital or in some other format) of the interviews you conducted for The Big Buy. We believe that footage contains evidence that is relevant to one or more legal issues raised in the civil and criminal proceedings."
The letter, from attorney Jonathan D. Pauerstein, continues, "I do not know whether you [Birnbaum] will oppose such a subpoena. In any case, the purpose of this letter is to ask that you ensure that all such footage is preserved and not lost, destroyed, erased, or filmed over, pending the resolution of our effort to obtain a subpoena and any efforts by you or others to oppose that subpoena."
The letter, dated September 30, 2005, concludes, "I do not mean the foregoing to suggest any wrongdoing on your part with respect to the film, and hope you do not find this request offensive. I simply believe that some of those whom you interviewed made statements that will be relevant to Mr. Ellis's defense."
Lawyers for Ellis and another DeLay co-defendant, John Colyandro, are preparing a court motion that will request that a subpoena for the footage be issued.
Reached by National Review Online Tuesday, Birnbaum declined to comment.
When the story of the movie originally appeared in NRO, DeLay and his team cited it as evidence that Earle was seeking publicity in his pursuit of DeLay. "Oh yeah, he's just doing his job," DeLay said mockingly last week during a talk-radio interview. "He's just doing his job. He's got a film crew that has been following him around for two years to document how he's going to get Tom DeLay."
[url]http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200510041617.asp[/url]
2005-10-12 10:14 | User Profile
"I love how Clinton worshippers and defenders always try to claim it was all perfectly innocent and only about a blow job. That 'Republicans just 'over-reacted' out of partisan bias' is the implication they always infer. They conveeniently manage to forget or ignore how many people associated with the Clintons went to jail. And of course, now....having managed to forget the past and hoping that everyone else will too....they're faking outrage at DeLay, Frist and anyone else they think they should try to get rid of. Problem is, most people do remember back that far. And most people will remember back this far come next election and even in 2008. Much to the dismay of the sore loser lefties when they lose the next two elections.
Clinton Scandals Refresher:
The Clinton Legacy
The Progressive Review
Our Clinton Scandal Index RECORDS SET
Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad
According to our best information, 40 government officials were indicted or convicted in the wake of Watergate. A reader computes that there was a total of 31 Reagan era convictions, including 14 because of Iran-Contra and 16 in the Department of Housing & Urban Development scandal. 47 individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were imprisoned. A key difference between the Clinton story and earlier ones was the number of criminals with whom he was associated before entering the White House.
Using a far looser standard that included resignations, David R. Simon and D. Stanley Eitzen in Elite Deviance, say that 138 appointees of the Reagan administration either resigned under an ethical cloud or were criminally indicted. Curiously Haynes Johnson uses the same figure but with a different standard in "Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years: "By the end of his term, 138 administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."
STARR-RAY INVESTIGATION
CRIME STATS
SMALTZ INVESTIGATION
CLINTON MACHINE CRIMES FOR WHICH CONVICTIONS HAVE BEEN OBTAINED
Drug trafficking (3), racketeering, extortion, bribery (4), tax evasion, kickbacks, embezzlement (2), fraud (12), conspiracy (5), fraudulent loans, illegal gifts (1), illegal campaign contributions (5), money laundering (6), perjury, obstruction of justice.
OTHER MATTERS INVESTIGATED BY SPECIAL PROSECUTORS AND CONGRESS, OR REPORTED IN THE MEDIA
Bank and mail fraud, violations of campaign finance laws, illegal foreign campaign funding, improper exports of sensitive technology, physical violence and threats of violence, solicitation of perjury, intimidation of witnesses, bribery of witnesses, attempted intimidation of prosecutors, perjury before congressional committees, lying in statements to federal investigators and regulatory officials, flight of witnesses, obstruction of justice, bribery of cabinet members, real estate fraud, tax fraud, drug trafficking, failure to investigate drug trafficking, bribery of state officials, use of state police for personal purposes, exchange of promotions or benefits for sexual favors, using state police to provide false court testimony, laundering of drug money through a state agency, false reports by medical examiners and others investigating suspicious deaths, the firing of the RTC and FBI director when these agencies were investigating Clinton and his associates, failure to conduct autopsies in suspicious deaths, providing jobs in return for silence by witnesses, drug abuse, improper acquisition and use of 900 FBI files, improper futures trading, murder, sexual abuse of employees, false testimony before a federal judge, shredding of documents, withholding and concealment of subpoenaed documents, fabricated charges against (and improper firing of) White House employees, inviting drug traffickers, foreign agents and participants in organized crime to the White House.
ARKANSAS ALZHEIMER'S
Number of times that Clinton figures who testified in court or before Congress said that they didn't remember, didn't know, or something similar.
Bill Kennedy 116 Harold Ickes 148 Ricki Seidman 160 Bruce Lindsey 161 Bill Burton 191 Mark Gearan 221 Mack McLarty 233 Neil Egglseston 250 Hillary Clinton 250 John Podesta 264 Jennifer O'Connor 343 Dwight Holton 348 Patsy Thomasson 420 Jeff Eller 697
[url]http://prorev.com/legacy.htm[/url]
More Recent Scandal:
[url]http://www.wnbc.com/politics/4063107/detail.html[/url] "
2005-10-17 23:52 | User Profile
The most compelling piece of evidence cited by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to implicate House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in a money laundering and conspiracy case can't be located, Earle's prosecution team admitted on Friday.
Indictments against DeLay and fundraisers Jim Ellis and John Colyandro allege that Ellis gave "a document that contained the names of several candidates for the Texas House" to a Republican National Committee official in 2002, reports the Houston Chronicle.
The document was touted as proof that DeLay was part of a scheme to swap $190,000 in restricted corporate money for the same amount of money from individuals that could be legally used by Texas candidates.
But Earle's prosecution team told the court on Friday that they had only a "similar" list and not the one allegedly given to the RNC. Late in the day, they released a list of 17 Republican candidates in Texas, but fewer than half are alleged to have received money as part of the alleged DeLay plot. DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin immediately pounced on the development, telling the Chronicle that the lack of a list "destroys" Earle's case against the three men. "That's astonishing, astonishing that they would get a grand jury to indict and allege there is a list and then they have to admit in open court the first time they appear in open court that there is no list," DeGuerin said.
Prosecutor Earle engaged in similar tactics in 1993, when he twice indicted Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for misuse of campaign funds, only to have the case dismissed both times. Earle indicted a third time, but when the case went to trial he failed to produce any evidence and was forced to dismiss all charges. \
NewMax.com
How in the world does this piece of scum Earle get away with harassing people?
2005-10-18 09:16 | User Profile
[url]http://thepoliticalteen.net/2005/09/28/delaystatement/[/url]
Check this out too.
"Tom DeLay Indictment: Where's the Proof?
House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, is being charged with criminal conspiracy. Here is the complete text of the indictment (you need Adobe Acrobat installed to view it).
Read through it. It's short so it will only take a few minutes. When you read it, do you notice anything? Where are the facts? Where is the proof? I didn't see any."
[url]http://j_wizzle.blogspot.com/2005/09/tom-delay-indictment-wheres-proof.html[/url]
2005-10-18 10:19 | User Profile
[img]http://mediamatters.org/static/video/pat-buchanan.jpg[/img]
Pat Buchanan: Ronnie Earle should be "behind bars"
On the October 11 edition of the nationally syndicated radio show Imus in the Morning, which also airs on MSNBC, MSNBC news analyst and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan followed other conservatives (see here, here, and here) in attacking Travis County, Texas, district attorney Ronnie Earle for his prosecution of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). Buchanan claimed that Earle should be "behind bars" for his involvement in DeLay's recent indictment on conspiracy and money-laundering charges.
From the October 11 broadcast of Westwood One and MSNBC's Imus in the Morning:
IMUS: We're talking to Pat Buchanan here on the Imus in the Morning program, 17 till the hour. Even people who are not fans -- we're kind of switching gears here, slightly -- but, even people who aren't fans of Tom DeLay think that this looks a little flimsy, what they have on him, or not?
BUCHANAN: They ought to put that guy, Earle, behind bars. Look, I mean, look what he did. He indicts DeLay, on Friday, so DeLay's lawyers come in on Monday and said, "Ronnie Earle has indicted DeLay for violating, in 2002, a law that wasn't even passed and enacted until 2003" --
[laughter]
BUCHANAN: --and so Earle has got egg all over his face. So, he impanels a grand jury --
IMUS: Over the weekend, I guess, right?
BUCHANAN: --and in five hours they indict him. Well, it's unbelievable.
IMUS: Yeah.
BUCHANAN: I mean, really. I was talking with a friend of mine in the green room last night, and we were talking about this -- you know, the criminalization of politics is appalling. It used to be good enough that you'd go out there, and you beat the guy, fair and square. And he's out for four years, and you have a good laugh. **But, now's it's, uh, it's not satisfactory or if you can't beat him, you put him in prison. **
[url]http://mediamatters.org/items/200510130001[/url]
2005-10-18 14:11 | User Profile
DeLay Had Rejected Deal for Guilty Plea to Misdemeanor
By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 18, 2005; Page A07
Attorneys for former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) disclosed yesterday that the powerful politician rebuffed a Texas prosecutor's suggestion that he plead guilty to a misdemeanor violation of election law.
The exchange between lawyers in the case occurred before DeLay was indicted on felony money-laundering charges by a Texas grand jury.
In a series of new motions filed as DeLay nears arraignment in Austin on Friday, his attorneys also asked the court to sever DeLay's forthcoming trial from that of his co-defendants, political aides James W. Ellis and John Colyandro, so that DeLay's innocence or guilt can be swiftly resolved.
In addition, lead attorney Dick DeGuerin and his two co-counsels filed separate motions seeking to quash both counts of the Oct. 3 money-laundering indictment against DeLay. They cited multiple reasons that the transactions at the heart of the alleged offense were not a violation of Texas law. The lawyers said, for example, that the law covered the "money laundering of funds" such as coins or currency, and that the money transfers cited in the indictment involved "checks" that were not "funds." In the indictment, DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro were charged both with money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The accusation grew out of a September 2002 transfer of $190,000 collected by a DeLay-organized group mostly from corporations to the national Republican Party in Washington, and the payment several weeks later of $190,000 by the party to select state candidates in Texas.
The aim of the alleged scheme was to ensure the election of a Republican majority that year in the Texas House, so it could redraw the state's congressional map to favor the election of more Republicans. The effort succeeded, and five more Texas Republicans were elected to Congress in 2004.
Texas is one of 18 states that bars the expenditure of corporate funds for campaign purposes, and the indictment alleged that the two fund transfers were an attempt to subvert state law.
The Republican National Committee and DeLay's associates have asserted that the transfers were legal, because the money from Texas went into one bank account and the funds that went to Texas were paid from another "The right thing, the courageous thing, for you to do is to admit you were wrong and dismiss the case right away," DeGuerin wrote in a letter to Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. "The longer you drag it out the more obvious it becomes that the result you care about most is the political damage your actions have done to Tom DeLay."
DeLay previously alleged that one of Earle's aims was to force him from his position as House majority leader. Under a House Republican rule, members accused of felony crimes must step down from leadership roles. Had DeLay agreed to Earle's suggestion that he plead guilty to a lesser charge, he would not have been forced to step down.
Earle did not respond to a request to comment yesterday. A series of subpoenas issued by Earle's office late last week for telephone records of DeLay, a daughter who serves as his event planner, and some associates in Washington and Texas suggest that Earle is still seeking information that might bolster his case against DeLay.
It is not clear, however, whether the data being sought are needed to underpin the existing indictment or to support additional charges. Earle previously said only that his investigation is "continuing."
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com[/url]
2005-10-18 18:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Gabrielle][But Earle's prosecution team told the court on Friday that they had only a "similar" list and not the one allegedly given to the RNC. Late in the day, they released a list of 17 Republican candidates in Texas, but fewer than half are alleged to have received money as part of the alleged DeLay plot. DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin immediately pounced on the development, telling the Chronicle that the lack of a list "destroys" Earle's case against the three men. "That's astonishing, astonishing that they would get a grand jury to indict and allege there is a list and then they have to admit in open court the first time they appear in open court that there is no list," DeGuerin said.
Prosecutor Earle engaged in similar tactics in 1993, when he twice indicted Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for misuse of campaign funds, only to have the case dismissed both times. Earle indicted a third time, but when the case went to trial he failed to produce any evidence and was forced to dismiss all charges. \
NewMax.com
How in the world does this piece of scum Earle get away with harassing people?[/QUOTE]Its certainly a grey area in Democracy - the practice of harassing and trying to imprison members of the opposition party, especially the leadership. At best its corruption, at worst it marks an incipent police state. In general, its something we associate with south of the border.
But its certainly blatantly political when the prosecutor of the liberal Democratic capital of Texas goes after the highest ranking Republican in the state on spurious charges. Part of it's just your old south Texas corrupt politics, but its acceptance I think shows how little Democrats respect Republicans these days.