IT'S ALL ABOUT THE JACK

Everyone is now focusing on the issues surrounding the DeLay court shenanigans in Texas, and it is quite a sideshow. But, from what I've read elsewhere, most observers didn't even think that Ronnie Earle's investigation would explode like it has.

The investigation that everyone thought would snare DeLay is the Abramoff Investigation:

A grand jury investigating the White House leak of a CIA agent's name is expected to wrap up its work in the next couple of weeks, but it is another investigation — of former Republican superstar lobbyist Jack Abramoff — that has the Republican political establishment holding its breath.

Abramoff is at the center of ever more complicated inquiries that touch on subjects as wide-ranging as allegations of influ- ence-peddling in Congress and the White House, a gangland-style slaying in Florida and political shenanigans in Guam.

...

Abramoff has had close connections with leading Republicans, including Bush; U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay of Sugar Land, the former House majority leader; Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania; party strategist Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform; and strategist Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition executive director and Bush campaign official who is now running for lieutenant governor of Georgia.

See, Tom DeLay is likethis with Jackie Boy:

The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.

...

House ethics rules contain detailed provisions barring the acceptance of any travel funds from private sources if doing so would "create the appearance of using public office for private gain." They also obligate lawmakers to "make inquiry on the source of the funds that will be used to pay" for any travel ostensibly financed by a nonprofit organization -- to rule out the acceptance of reimbursements that come from one organization when a trip is "in fact organized and conducted by someone else."

So you see, the real danger for DeLay is the investigation into his connections to Abramoff. Which means that the real fireworks are coming down the road.

JC