Earle's actions, movie add erratic element(Grand Jury shopping)
Statesman ^ | 10/05/05 | EDITORIAL BOARD
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has added several more acts to the already circus-like investigation of alleged Republican campaign funding illegalities.
The latest act unfolded on Tuesday afternoon when Earle disclosed that he had gone grand jury shopping on Friday after an indictment against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, which was returned last Wednesday, was questioned for its legality.
Working on its last day, a second grand jury declined to indict DeLay on Friday. Earle's office said it received new information over the weekend, so it went to yet a third grand jury empaneled on Monday, the last possible day under the statute of limitations. That grand jury returned the new indictments.
Earle's panicked rush lends credence to those who complain that he is a partisan playing politics with the grand jury, and it gives ammunition to critics who argue that he has been hapless in his three-year probe.
Earle also didn't help himself by becoming Austin's newest movie star, allowing a documentary crew to film his pursuit of possible financial wrongdoing by Republican operatives in 2002.
Earle had to know he would be summoning a GOP storm by investigating the party's powerful lobbying and fund-raising organizations. After all, he's been there before. Since Earle's failed prosecution of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in 1994, he has been saddled with the "partisan Democrat" label. He must have realized he would face the same wrath if DeLay's political action committees and the GOP business lobby were indicted.
Yet none of that history caused him to doubt the wisdom of inviting a documentary crew to film his probe of GOP fund-raising. It should have. News of the independent film crew's two-year-long access to Earle and his inner sanctum did not serve him well.
Earle disagrees, saying that he was just doing his job. Sorry, but his job is to prosecute, not be red meat for filmmakers looking for a big score. By starring in "The Big Buy," a documentary, Earle gives every appearance of having scripted a vendetta against one of the most powerful Republicans in the country.
It might not have been unethical for the district attorney to give such unprecedented access to a documentary crew, but it wasn't wise. Earle should have known better than to make himself the focus of attention.
His profile has been elevated throughout the long investigation stemming from the 2002 campaign, when DeLay helped fashion a GOP effort to take over the Texas House. The strategy worked, and DeLay forced a mid-census redistricting that gave him more Texas Republicans, and more power, in Congress.
Earle's high profile includes interviews in Esquire magazine and on television's "60 Minutes" — and a speech with a gratuitous slap at DeLay during a Democratic fund-raiser in Dallas in May.
Earle would have served the public and his investigation better with less publicity and a cleaner, calmer and less controversial grand jury presentation.
His intent all along has been to get to the bottom of controversial corporate donations to political campaigns, which in most cases is illegal in Texas.
He should have kept his attention there, and not on publicity.
Earle planted his seeds in a most public way. Now the nation will be watching to see what he harvests. |
