Texas judge weighs options on witness testimony for DeLay's sentencing
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 9, 2011
In the current movie "Casino Jack," a character playing former House majority leader Tom DeLay grins and smokes at the front of a private jet on the way to Scotland for a golf trip in 2000 while an attractive stewardess serves drinks to lobbyist Jack Abramoff and smirking former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon, several seats back.
"Are we all set?" Abramoff asks Scanlon. "Check," Scanlon says. "Eighteen holes St. Andrews. Five-star hotel. . . . Restaurant tour of Edinburgh. Two-day stopover at the Hyde Park Oriental in London. Oh, VIP tickets to 'The Lion King' for Tom." They laugh.
While the film is a fictionalized reconstruction, on Monday morning some of the real-life participants in that golf expedition - in addition to DeLay - may well be on hand in a Texas courtroom to provide a first-hand description to a county judge with the power to put the formerly powerful Republican politician behind bars for years.
The occasion is the opening of the so-called "punishment phase" of a six-year state legal proceeding against DeLay, who on Nov. 24 was found guilty by a jury of money laundering and conspiracy, for funneling corporate contributions to state candidates, considered illegal under a Texas law banning the use of such funds in state races.
(More here.)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 9, 2011
In the current movie "Casino Jack," a character playing former House majority leader Tom DeLay grins and smokes at the front of a private jet on the way to Scotland for a golf trip in 2000 while an attractive stewardess serves drinks to lobbyist Jack Abramoff and smirking former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon, several seats back.
"Are we all set?" Abramoff asks Scanlon. "Check," Scanlon says. "Eighteen holes St. Andrews. Five-star hotel. . . . Restaurant tour of Edinburgh. Two-day stopover at the Hyde Park Oriental in London. Oh, VIP tickets to 'The Lion King' for Tom." They laugh.
While the film is a fictionalized reconstruction, on Monday morning some of the real-life participants in that golf expedition - in addition to DeLay - may well be on hand in a Texas courtroom to provide a first-hand description to a county judge with the power to put the formerly powerful Republican politician behind bars for years.
The occasion is the opening of the so-called "punishment phase" of a six-year state legal proceeding against DeLay, who on Nov. 24 was found guilty by a jury of money laundering and conspiracy, for funneling corporate contributions to state candidates, considered illegal under a Texas law banning the use of such funds in state races.
(More here.)
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