Austin, TX, United States (AHN) – Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s trial on allegations he laundered corporate political donations entered its second week Monday. The Republican is the highest member of Congress to face criminal charges.
Testimony resumes in the trial in Travis County in which DeLay, 63, is accused of directing corporate contributions to Republican candidates for the Texas House of Representatives in 2002.
The former congressional leader remains adamant about his innocence. The allegations are “a political vendetta that has no substance of crime,” he told the New York Times last week.
DeLay is charged with funneling $190,000 in corporate donations from a political action committee he founded, Texans for a Republican Majority or TRMPAC, to state House candidates through the Republican National Committee. He was indicted in 2005 along with former aides John Colyandro and Jim Ellis for conspiracy and violating campaign finance laws in the state. The charge of violating election law was later dismissed.
Prosecutors say DeLay and his co-defendants made an arrangement with the Republican National Committee’s deputy chief of staff at the time, Terry Nelson, in which TRMPAC would contribute a certain amount of money to the RNC. The RNC would then make donations using the money to Texas House candidates, violating Texas law prohibiting corporate political contributions.
On the stand last Thursday, Nelson said that Ellis had asked to exchange corporate donations with campaign contributions.
DeLay’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, dismissed the testimony as “All smoke and no fire,” according to the Austin-American Statesman.
DeLay is facing life in prison if he is convicted of one count of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to engage in money laundering. His trial, which is expected to last two more weeks, comes two months after he was cleared in a wide-ranging federal probe into the corruption case of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was convicted of bribery, fraud and tax evasion in two separate trials.
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