Corruption for Dummies

The fundamentals of Tom Delay's unlawful conduct:

1) Texas law prohibits corporations from making donations to candidates for state political office

2) Tom Delay's Political Action Committee (PAC), Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), accepted roughly $155,000 dollars from corporations.

3) That money was placed into one of the PAC's accounts, along with $35,000 dollars from other sources.

4) A check for $190,000 ($155,000+$35,000) was written, from that same account, to a specific arm of the Republican National Committee involved in local elections.

5) That committee was also furnished with a list of Texas state legislature candidates, republicans, and how much money each candidate was to receive.

6) The money was then distributed, as per instructions, from the RNC to the Texas candidates.

----
It is clear by the steps taken that those involved were accutely aware of the laws and took steps to circumvent those laws. Is that criminal? You tell me.


For more see:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050929/ap_on_go_co/delay_investigation;
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/28/delay/index.html; or
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170681,00.html