Just days after his deputy chief of staff Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to corruption charges, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
has dropped out of his re-election race in Texas:
CNN reported Monday evening that indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (TX) will drop his bid for re-election in Texas’s 22nd Congressional District, according to two unnamed GOP sources. DeLay’s being challenged by former Congressman Nick Lampson, who lost his seat in 2004 as a result of DeLay’s redistricting scheme.
Rudy is the second DeLay aide to cop a plea. In November, his former spokesman Michael Scanlon, who was a business partner of Jack Abramoff, the convicted former lobbyist who worked closely with DeLay’s office, pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt public officials.
DeLay will make an official announcement today but we can expect his statement to be all happy talk. What remains to be seen is whether Rudy, Scanlon or Abramoff have already ratted DeLay out.
If you ask me, it’s almost a dead cinch prosecutors have the goods on DeLay.
Of course they (all three!) sold DeLay out or they wouldn’t be walking the streets. It’s a powerful incentive for a prosecutor when they can look you in the eye and say, “Talk now and give up everyone and everything or you become Bubba’s bitch for the next thirty years.”
I wonder what Tom will do? Be kneeling in (ahem)… prayer in front of Bubba for the next thirty, or does he bring everyone down with him?
As religious as he claims to be, I just can’t picture him praying with Bubba, so this is just the teeniest, tiniest tip of the iceberg. Hoo-boy! Now the fun starts for real!