DeLay defenders likely to go all quiet and stuff

DeLay himself is still doing everything he can to defame Ronnie Earle and the two Texas grand juries that have now indicted him. Others are getting a little less vocal in their defenses of the corrupt ex-House Makority Leader.

A grand jury in Texas issued a second indictment on Monday against Representative Tom DeLay, accusing the Texas Republican and two aides of money laundering in a $190,000 transaction that prosecutors have described as a violation of the state's ban on the use of corporate money in local election campaigns.

The indictment was announced without warning on Monday in Austin, the state capital, after lawyers for Mr. DeLay went to court earlier in the day to ask that the original conspiracy indictment be dismissed on technical grounds. Mr. DeLay was forced to step down temporarily as House majority leader as a result of that indictment last week.

You've gotta love that-- 'technical' grounds.

Mr. DeLay's lawyers argued in their court papers on Monday that the conspiracy statute cited in the original statute did not apply to election law violations that occurred in 2002; they said the law was not amended until the following year to allow electoral code violations to be prosecuted as a conspiracy.

In a letter to Mr. Earle on Monday, Dick DeGuerin, a lawyer for Mr. DeLay, repeated the arguments for abandoning the conspiracy charges and said that "since you have professed not to be politically motivated in bringing this indictment, I request that you immediately agree to dismiss this indictment so that the political consequences can be reversed."

Uh... wha?