It now seems clear, from all that we know, that the Department of Homeland Security was probably guilty of nothing more than being duped into getting involved in Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick’s effort to track down and arrest the Democrats in the Texas House. Homeland Security’s refusal to release the transcript of the call from the Texas state trooper which got Homeland into the act doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence. Nor does the fact that they’re holding back the transcript so that the matter can be investigated by, to quote the Times, the “agency’s acting inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, a Houston Republican 
who is well known among some of the same state lawmakers in Texas who wanted the plane tracked down.” (Tom DeLay’s district is in the Houston suburbs.)
But let’s drive down to the real issue here.
What the Speaker of the Texas state House of Representatives does is a matter for Texans to deal with. But what the House Majority Leader of the federal Congress does is a matter of national concern. And it seems quite clear that Tom DeLay had some role — probably the leading role, but certainly some role — in pushing for federal law enforcement officials to get involved in the manhunt. (In a run-down of the incident on CNN, Bill Schneider said “that Texas authorities had followed up on DeLay’s suggestion and asked the feds to help round up lawmakers on the lam.”) For a slew of different reasons, that should be investigated — not least of which is that the fact that this stunt raises real questions about the man’s balance, sense of propriety and, frankly, respect for constitutional government.
Who did he talk to at the Justice Department? DeLay’s spokesman said DeLay spoke to someone at Justice. Who? What did he ask them? And what did they say? What role did he have in getting the leadership of the Texas state House to bring in the Feds in the first place?
