Jeez, if Travis County DA Ronnie Earle insists on dredging up every bit of muck on Tom DeLay, his investigation will never end.
His investigation has just issued a new subpoena to Carolyn Malenick. Who’s Carolyn Malenick? A “close friend of the Falwell family,” for one. But this excerpt from “The Hammer” by Lou Dubose and Jan Reid explains why she’s coming up now.
Hold on, we’re going ten years back, to 1996, when a man named Brian Babin was running for East Texas’ 2nd Congressional District’s seat. The other key player here is Peter Cloeren, a Texas businessman who was supporting Babin’s campaign. As Cloeren told it to investigators on the House Committee on Government Reform in 1998, he found himself next to Tom DeLay at a private lunch after a Babin campaign event, and DeLay turned to him and…
“Congressman DeLay turned to me and told me that Mr. Babin’s campaign needed more money because Mr. Babin was being out-spent by his Democratic opponent.
“Congressman DeLay told me that the Democratic candidate was receiving a lot of money from liberal interest groups like labor unions and trial lawyers. I told Congressman DeLay that I could not help Mr. Babin raise more money because I had run out of vehicles. Congressman DeLay specifically told me that it would not be a problem for him to find, in his words, “additional vehicles,” since he knew some organizations and campaigns which could serve as these vehicles. Mr. DeLay turned to his aide, Mr. Robert Mills and stated that money could be funneled to the Babin campaign through both Triad a corporation that ran two nonprofit foundations and other congressional campaigns. Congressman DeLay then specifically told me that Mr. Mills would follow up with me on the details of how to funnel additional monies to Mr. Babin’s campaign.”
Malenick was Triad’s sole proprietor, so she was no doubt privy to DeLay’s “funneling.” Named on the subpoena is Triad, Triad Management, Inc. and then some of the other organizations involved in Babin’s corrupt, but ultimately losing, effort.
Oh, Ronnie, will the digging ever end?
