{"id":63,"date":"2005-10-06T22:59:54","date_gmt":"2005-10-07T04:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/loco\/dump-duhbya\/the-vilified-ronnie-earle\/"},"modified":"2005-10-06T23:06:56","modified_gmt":"2005-10-07T05:06:56","slug":"the-vilified-ronnie-earle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/the-vilified-ronnie-earle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vilified Ronnie Earle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tom\"RonnieIn Texas, The Hammer Runs Into an Anvil<\/a>
\nEarle can defy <\/p>\n

pigeonholing. Buck Wood, an Austin lawyer and friend of Earle’s, says the prosecutor is “definitely a moderate,” and that he’s <\/p>\n

“not involved in the Democratic Party.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Raised on a cattle ranch in the tiny north Texas town of Birdville, Earle served <\/p>\n

briefly in the Texas House before being elected district attorney. A self-described “radical moderate,”<\/strong> he has faced <\/p>\n

little serious opposition in his reelection campaigns. This comports with commonly heard descriptions of him — adjectives such as <\/p>\n

“maverick,” “idealist” and “crusader.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, Earle is a former Eagle Scout more interested in social policy than in collecting <\/p>\n

death-penalty convictions. …<\/p>\n

“Ronnie has a very deep philosophical belief about good and evil,” Keel said. “He sees <\/p>\n

corporate involvement in politics as an evil to be attacked at any costs.”<\/strong> …<\/p>\n

Earle says he has no choice. He was hoping <\/p>\n

to retire last year, he says, but felt he could not abandon this case.<\/p>\n

“The issue that we’re faced with is the role of <\/p>\n

large concentrations of money in democracy, whether it’s individuals or corporations,” he said. “The issue is the same.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Movement of $190,000 at Issue<\/a>
\nDeLay Case Could Hinge on Original Source of <\/p>\n

Money
\nBy R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer<\/p>\n

The head of a Texas political group organized by then-House Majority <\/p>\n

Leader Tom DeLay made an urgent request on Sept. 10, 2002, to the group’s accountant: Send a blank check overnight to DeLay’s chief <\/p>\n

fundraiser in Washington. The next day, the fundraiser, James W. Ellis, inscribed it to an arm of the Republican National Committee and <\/p>\n

wrote in the amount: $190,000.<\/p>\n

It was an odd, election-eve donation of funds to Washington by a political group formed to support <\/p>\n

Republicans in Texas. But that was not the whole story. On Oct. 4, 2002, the RNC sent the same total amount in seven checks ranging from <\/p>\n

$20,000 to $40,000 to candidates for the Texas House.<\/p>\n

It is this transaction — the swift and loosely documented transfer of funds <\/p>\n

from Texas to Washington and the subsequent transfer of the same amount in multiple checks back to Texas — that lies at the heart of <\/p>\n

Wednesday’s indictment of DeLay and two political associates by a Texas prosecutor, Ronnie Earle. …<\/p>\n

“I didn’t know they did <\/p>\n

this legal activity,” DeLay told CNN, referring to the transfer of $190,000 to the RNC by his alleged co-conspirators, TRMPAC director <\/p>\n

John Colyandro and Washington fundraiser James Ellis. DeLay also said he did not know which Texas candidates the two men had “targeted” <\/p>\n

for donations from Washington in a note they sent to the RNC along with the check. “I did not know where the money went,” he said.<\/p>\n

DeLay Arraignment Is Set for Oct. 21<\/a> By Amy Goldstein, Washington Post Staff <\/p>\n

Writer<\/p>\n

Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has been ordered to appear at an arraignment on Oct. 21 in an Austin courtroom, where he plans to <\/p>\n

plead not guilty to the charge that he conspired with two associates to funnel corporate donations to Republican candidates for the Texas <\/p>\n

legislature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Texas, The Hammer Runs Into an Anvil Earle can defy pigeonholing. Buck Wood, an Austin lawyer and friend of Earle’s, says the prosecutor is “definitely a moderate,” and that he’s “not involved in the Democratic Party.” Raised on a cattle ranch in the tiny north Texas town of Birdville, Earle served briefly in the … Continue reading The Vilified Ronnie Earle<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}