CBS News ran a story on its news program - "
60 Minutes" last night covering the ongoing criminal investigation in Texas honing in on House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Here is
the transcript of last night's show, which also featured
Ronnie Earle, the local district attorney from Austin, Texas, who during his 28 year career have indicted more than a dozen politicians, including a U.S. senator, the state's attorney general, and a sitting Texas Supreme Court justice. In case you are wondering whether Mr. Earle is a partisan figure, of the 15 elected officials his office prosecuted, 12 of them were Democrats.
Texas District Attorney Ronnie Earle, Photo: CBS
The show featured some choice qutoes from Norm Ornstein, a scholar from the conservative American Enterprise Institute:
Norm Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute, Photo:CBSMr. Ornstein seems to share our views concerning
the Republicans ethics purge over DeLay admonishments by the House Ethics Committee:
STAHL: (Voiceover) Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and recent critic of Tom DeLay, says the Republicans are worried because DeLay has already been admonished by the House Ethics Committee for questionable conduct.
Mr. ORNSTEIN: Tom DeLay was rebuked on three separate matters by the House Ethics Committee in the last Congress, an extraordinary slap at the leader. But they left open--pending--a fourth issue, which was the Ronnie Earle case in Texas. So what do the House Republicans do? They fire the chairman of the Ethics Committee. They removed two members...
(Footage of Ornstein)
STAHL: (Voiceover) And two of the replacements had contributed to DeLay's legal defense fund.
Mr. ORNSTEIN: They wanted a group of people on the House Ethics Committee who are going to go to extraordinary lengths to keep Tom DeLay from going down or being embarrassed yet again, which embarrasses them all, they believe, with the--with what's been going on down in Texas.
Daily DeLay also pointed out another choice Ornstein quote evoking the memory of Jim Wright, the former House Speaker (another Texan, except he was a Democrat), who was forced to resign over his own ethics scandal. By the way
we played a key role back then in pushing the House to take Wright's transgressions seriously, and we are not going to relent until we get to hold the current leaders in Congress
accountable for their actions.
