Delay "Scandal" Hits International Press...

[rndmprsn]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1469363,00.html

tom "no champange and oysters on the potomac" delay

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Bush's enforcer under attack after details emerge of funding for trip to Britain

Julian Borger in Washington
Monday April 25, 2005
The Guardian

A trip to Britain, including an "educational" meeting with Lady Thatcher and a lot of golf in Scotland, became a full-blown American scandal yesterday, imperilling President George Bush's right-hand man in Congress.

When Tom DeLay, an enforcer of rightwing Republican discipline known as The Hammer, travelled to England and Scotland in 2000 with his wife and entourage, the air tickets and hotel bills were charged to the credit card of a lobbyist currently the subject of criminal and tax investigations, the Washington Post reported.

The payments by Jack Abramoff represent a clear violation of congressional rules by Mr DeLay, who received three warnings last year from the House of Representatives' ethics committee for his irregular use of lobbyist funds...

...The steady drip of damaging news has led some Republicans - including an earlier grandee of the radical right, Newt Gingrich - to express concern that Mr DeLay might become a political liability, and his future is uncertain.