Will the hammer fall?
Once more, an ethics storm is swirling around Tom DeLay, but he's hanging tough
Not everyone got to see the softer side of the Christian spirit, however, and the Hammer continued to rack up personal and political troubles. He was sued in 1994. A business partner, Bob Blankenship, charged DeLay with using company funds to pay off old debts.
In defending himself, DeLay said in a sworn deposition that he didn't believe he was an officer in the company. The problem was that DeLay had been filing financial-disclosure reports listing himself as "chairman of the board." Pressed to explain, DeLay blamed a Democratic cabal and said he really wasn't sure of his role in the company. He later amended his financial-disclosure forms and added a clarification for the court.
DeLay has denied taking retribution after settling with Blankenship for an undisclosed sum. But both the plaintiff and many others in the Fort Bend County GOP establishment disagree, saying what occurred was a warning to would-be opponents. Calling it "quite a coincidence," Blankenship's lawyer, Gerald DeNisco, said he and several others associated with the case were audited by the IRS the next year. Blankenship's wife, Jacqueline, a prominent GOP organizer, was stripped of her party posts. DeLay then ordered Sheriff Milton Wright to remove her from his campaign. When Wright refused, DeLay tried unsuccessfully to unseat him. Asked why he didn't fold, the sheriff said in an interview that, as a former Texas Ranger, he "wasn't accustomed to being shoved around." But he added that after the primary, DeLay made peace. "Tom is driven by a pretty strong propulsion system that makes him go in the direction he wants to go," Wright says. "And he doesn't like to lose." After the campaign, Wright recalled, "DeLay said that 'it's politics and it's over, I support you now.' And he has."
His desire to win, possibly at any cost, may be DeLay's Achilles heel. During his 11 terms in Congress, DeLay's drive to enforce party loyalty and build a well-oiled fundraising machine has bumped up repeatedly against ethical and legal guidelines. According to a 1998 affidavit filed by Peter Cloeren, a Texas businessman and political novice, he flew DeLay to his factory for a fundraiser for a local Republican candidate. DeLay and his staff, Cloeren said, encouraged him to help fund the local candidate using means that turned out to be illegal. Cloeren then poured tens of thousands of dollars into the candidate's campaign through intermediaries, to get around campaign limits. In the end, Cloeren and his company paid $400,000 to settle illegal fundraising charges. DeLay, who was never charged, told CNN he didn't know Cloeren "from Adam."
DeLay's troubles didn't end there. Last year the House ethics committee rebuked him three times, once for inviting executives of several large electricity companies to a TRMPAC fundraiser just days before a conference committee he served on was going to discuss a new comprehensive energy bill. The panel noted that the bill "was of critical importance to the attendees" and that DeLay was "in a position to significantly influence" it. DeLay called the rebuke politically motivated.
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