A Little Something Else for Democrats to Whine About

One of their favorite punching bags, Tom DeLay, could soon be cleared of money-laundering charges.

Money-laundering charges against former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and two indicted co-conspirators may be dismissed because the 2002 campaign finance case involved checks and not cash, a lawyer for DeLay said Sunday night.

"We win," said Dick DeGuerin, DeLay's lawyer, "because there's nothing but checks in the case."

The state's 3rd Court of Appeals on Friday actually upheld the money-laundering indictments against DeLay's two campaign associates, John Colyandro of Austin and Jim Ellis of Washington.

But the ruling contained a silver lining for the trio's lawyers because it concluded that the state's money-laundering statute — written in 1993 to combat illicit drug activity by focusing on the cash in the criminal transactions — did not apply to checks at the time DeLay is accused of laundering corporate money into campaign donations. The Legislature changed the law in 2005 to include checks.

Lawyers for the three defendants have included the check-versus-cash argument in other legal motions. But it was not part of the constitutional challenge that was before the 3rd Court of Appeals, so the appellate court could not dismiss on those grounds, DeGuerin said.

Few people inspire demonic rage in Democrats like DeLay. Hopefully, this really gets under their skin.