Step Down DeLay
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General PoliticsThat’s what the National Review is saying…at least as majority leader…
And frankly, I don’t blame them. The Abramoff scandal is about to get ridiculously ugly for Republican lawmakers…
The Abramoff case is not the figment of a fevered partisan prosecutor’s imagination. People have pled guilty to crimes â€â€? not just Abramoff, but former DeLay aide and fellow Abramoff rip-off-artist Michael Scanlon. The allegations touch on other former DeLay staffers, Ed Buckham and Tony Rudy. It might be that DeLay was unaware of all the greedy, and perhaps criminal, practices swirling around him, but his colleagues can be forgiven for wanting to take a “wait and see” attitude.DeLay has been on the kind of Abramoff-funded trips that are mentioned in the plea agreement. A Washington Post story a few days ago detailed how $1 million from a Russian oil interest represented by Abramoff made it into the coffer of a DeLay nonprofit. The Post reports that Buckham, who had previously been DeLay’s chief of staff, told the president of the nonprofit that the donation was meant to influence DeLay’s vote on an International Monetary Fund bailout for Russia. The nonprofit paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to Buckham’s lobbying firm, which in turn paid DeLay’s wife $3,200 a month for three years for supposedly compiling a list of lawmakers’ favorite charities (a job most people could do in a week).
Republicans underestimate the potential impact of the Abramoff scandal at their peril. One top Republican strategist told us, “There are two types of House Republicans: Those who are in trouble, and those who don’t know it yet.” Republicans have to do more, rather than less, to control the damage.
My prediction: no way in hell DeLay is stepping down. He’ll fight tough and nail to stay in there, even to the detriment of his party.
After all, they don’t call him The Hammer for nothing.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2006 and is filed under General Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
