You remember what got Republican Tom DeLay in a world of trouble? No? Here, let me refresh your memory:
The Travis County grand jury indicted DeLay and the same two associates, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, on conspiracy charges stemming from the same allegations last week.
Prosecutors say the three men agreed to violate campaign finance laws by sending corporate donations given [to] a state political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, to the national Republican Party.
The national GOP in turn is alleged to have distributed [returned] the same amount of funds [directly back] to Republican legislative candidates in Texas.
Corporations cannot donate to candidates in Texas elections.
Apparently, everything old is new again:
Conservative party officials engaged in a "cheque-swapping" scheme that enabled delegates to get federal tax credits for donations that were not donations, according to e-mail correspondence of Conservative party delegates prior to a 2005 political convention in Montreal.
The correspondence, written three months before the March 17-19 convention, appear on a website accessible only to party members.
Under the scheme, individual riding associations footed the bill for their delegates for food, travel, hotel and registration fees associated with the Montreal convention.
In exchange, the conventioneer would make a donation back to the riding association in the same amount.
It's not that the CPoC are such fucking crooks. It's that they're not even original crooks that's so disappointing.
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