CNN and Fox News are both passing on news from the Associated Press that Tom DeLay has been indicted again by a Texas grand jury, now on the grounds of money laundering. KVUE, an Austin station, has the story from the AP.
KVUE News has learned that a separate Travis County grand Jury has indicted U.S. Representative Tom DeLay on another criminal charge.
The charge is money laundering.
No other details have been released.
[Update 3:43 PM Pacific]: The AP’s April Castro has more.
The new indictment came hours after DeLay’s attorneys filed a request to dismiss the case. That request argued that the conspiracy charge was based on a law that was not effective until 2003, the year after the alleged money transfers.
The judge who will preside in DeLay’s case was out of the country on vacation and could not rule on the request. Other state district judges declined to rule on the request in his place, said Colleen Davis, a law clerk to Austin attorney Bill White, also represents DeLay.
The spin out of the DeLay camp today, as reported within the last hour on CNN, is that the second indictment is a response to DeLay’s move to dismiss the first indictment.
[Update 4:20 PM Pacific]: MSNBC carries an updated wire story with a little more information on the new grand jury.
The new charge was the first action from a new Travis County grand jury, which started its term Monday. Another grand jury, which ended its term Sept. 28, handed up 41 indictments in the three-year investigation.
Tom DeLay is going directly at Ronnie Earle to defend himself in the court of public opinion, and apparently Earle is not averse to using the court of opinion himself, as evidenced by this new grand jury he empaneled today (assuming MSNBC does not mean last Monday).
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