As his legal battles mount, DeLay adds to defense fund
House colleagues, corporations are big donors
Philip Shenon and Robert Pear, New York Times
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Washington -- A legal defense fund established by Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, has dramatically expanded its fund-raising effort in recent months, taking in more than $250,000 since the indictment last fall of two his closest political operatives in Texas, according to DeLay's latest financial disclosure statements.
The list of recent donors includes dozens of DeLay's House Republican colleagues, including two lawmakers who were placed on the House ethics committee this year, and several of the nation's largest corporations and their executives.
Among the corporate donors to the defense fund are Bacardi USA, the Florida-based rum-maker, which has also been indicted in the Texas investigation; and Reliant Energy, another major contributor to a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay that is the focus of the criminal inquiry. Groups seeking an overhaul of congressional ethics rules have long complained that companies may seek the favor of powerful lawmakers by contributing to their legal defense funds.
While the disclosure forms show that the defense fund has raised nearly $1 million since its establishment in 2000 and that DeLay is continuing to pick up generous donations from House Republicans and corporate executives, the documents also suggest that the majority leader's fund-raising efforts could soon be outpaced by ballooning legal bills.
The disclosure statements show that DeLay, whose title as majority leader makes him the second most powerful Republican in the House and whose fund- raising tactics led the House ethics committee to admonish him last year, paid $370,000 in legal fees last year -- $260,000 of it in the final three months of the year.
The fees were divided among lawyers in Washington and DeLay's home state of Texas, where he is facing scrutiny by a grand jury in Austin over his role in the creation and management of Texans for a Republican Majority, the political action committee that he helped establish in 2001. The committee has been accused of funneling illegal corporate donations to state Republican candidates in the 2002 elections.
The local prosecutor in Austin has refused to rule out criminal charges against DeLay, who under House rules would be forced to step down from his leadership position if indicted. A grand jury in the case issued indictments last September against James Ellis, the director of DeLay's national political action committee; a major Washington-based fund-raiser for DeLay, Warren RoBold; and eight companies that donated to the committee.
DeLay could face new legal bills over a swirl of allegations made against him and other House members, Republicans and Democrats, that they accepted foreign trips from lobbyists and registered foreign agents, in violation of House rules. This week, a group of government-watchdog groups, including Common Cause, Judicial Watch and Public Citizen, called for an ethics committee investigation into the travel, which included elaborate trips to Britain and South Korea.
Brent Perry, a Houston lawyer who runs the defense fund, known formally as the Tom DeLay Legal Expense Trust, said in an interview that donations continued to flow in this year despite recent, unflattering publicity for DeLay as a result of the criminal investigation in Texas and continuing attacks on his fund-raising activities from congressional Democrats and campaign-finance watchdog groups.
"There's tremendous support for helping Mr. DeLay pay these bills," Perry said. "So far, we haven't encountered any reluctance."
Perry said that while he had no calculations of DeLay's legal expenses so far this year, the lawyers' bills for the first three months of the year would be less than for the last quarter of 2004, largely because the House ethics committee ended a major investigation of DeLay last year. As a result of that inquiry, the committee admonished DeLay for appearing to link political donations to support for legislation involving the energy industry.
More than two-thirds of the donations raised in the last quarter of 2004 came from current and former members of Congress, all of them Republicans, and their political action committees.
The biggest congressional donors to DeLay's defense fund since its creation are: Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House Republican whip, who has contributed a total of $20,000; Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla of Texas, $15, 000, and former Republican Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, $15,000. Tauzin left Congress to become president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the main drug company lobby.
"I proudly support Majority Leader DeLay's legal effort to defend himself from these politically motivated attacks," said Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who contributed $5,000 to the fund last year. "The majority leader's conservative values and his effectiveness as a legislator have made him the top target for Democrats' frivolous ethics allegations."
Two other House Republican donors, Lamar Smith of Texas, who has given $10,000 to DeLay, and Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who gave $5,000, were placed on the House ethics committee this year, a move that drew criticism from House Democrats given the possibility that it might investigate the majority leader.
A spokesman for DeLay, Dan Allen, said there was no conflict of interest for the majority leader in accepting donations for his legal fees from large companies or from House colleagues. The contributions, Allen said, "were an acknowledgement that Congressman DeLay is a fixture within the conservative movement and has been a very effective leader, which makes him an inviting target for liberals and Democrats."
The list of corporate donors to the fund includes AMR, the parent company of American Airlines; Bell South; Coors Brewing; Exxon Mobil; Philip Morris; and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.
Some of the corporate donors also have become entangled in the grand jury investigation in Texas that is focused on Texans for a Republican Majority and the role of DeLay and several of his political operatives in its management.
The disclosure statements show that Bacardi USA, which has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges in Texas, has contributed a total of $3,000 to help pay DeLay's legal bills. Reliant Energy of Houston and its subsidiaries have donated a total of $20,000 to the defense fund.
Pat Hammond, a Reliant spokeswoman, said the company had recently changed its senior management "and because of that, we can't comment on what might have motivated the previous management to make a contribution." She said, "This team is committed to conducting its business with integrity and putting some of the matters from the past behind us." A spokeswoman for Bacardi did not return phone calls for comment.
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