GOLFING AT ST. ANDREWS….Expensive European golf junkets for Republican congressmen? Say it ain’t so! The LA Times has the latest in the convoluted story of Tom DeLay and his cronies in Congress who received expensive golf trips from infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff (illegal) but submitted reports saying the trips were paid for by a think tank (legal).
The folks involved say they are shocked ? shocked! ? to learn that the golfing money actually came from Abramoff. It’s a sad world we live in when innocent congressmen can be fleeced so badly by the corporate lobbyists they’ve come to trust, isn’t it?
UPDATE: And the New York Times has this:
Documents subpoenaed from an indicted fund-raiser for Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, suggest that Mr. DeLay was more actively involved than previously known in gathering corporate donations for a political committee that is the focus of a grand-jury investigation in Texas, his home state.
The documents, which were entered into evidence last week in a related civil trial in Austin, the state capital, suggest that Mr. DeLay personally forwarded at least one large corporate check to the committee, Texans for a Republican Majority….
Funneling corporate contributions to political campaigns is a no-no in Texas, of course, but DeLay says it’s just a political witch hunt and he was busy in Washington on the people’s business while all this monkey business was going on. I report, you decide.
