DeLay Voluntarily Aided Federal Investigation

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R.-Tex.) announced last week that he was resigning from Congress. The move came after DeLay's former deputy chief of staff, Tony Rudy, pleaded guilty to taking things of value from convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff in return for acts Rudy took as DeLay's aide.

While Rudy is now cooperating with federal investigators, he reportedly has not implicated DeLay. DeLay, meanwhile, is adamant he was not involved in any wrongdoing and was unaware of the illicit activities Rudy has now admitted to conducting in DeLay's leadership office.

After DeLay announced his resignation, he held an on-the-record briefing for a group of conservative journalists, including HUMAN EVENTS Editor Terence Jeffrey. DeLay said he had had his own lawyer, a former U.S. attorney, investigate his 20-year congressional career and that, in December, he had voluntarily given to federal investigators all materials (such as papers and e-mails) that he believed could be relevant to the Abramoff investigation, even though the Justice Department had never asked him to do so.

Ultimately, DeLay said, he resigned because he faced an extraordinarily tough, perhaps futile, campaign to win re-election in November and wanted to make sure his seat was retained by a Republican.

In the days ahead, he said, he hopes to continue as a conservative leader and activist.

In light of last week's Senate debate on immigration reform, DeLay recalled that he had told Republican House members that the House would not participate in a conference committee with the Senate if the Senate passed a Kennedy-McCain-type guest-worker program. "[W]e told our members," he said, "that we would not conference with the Senate if they had an amnesty program." He did not know, however, what the current Republican leadership has in mind. "I don't sit at the table anymore," he said.

Here are excerpts from DeLay's briefing.

Do you have any reason at all to believe federal investigators are looking at anything you did personally?

None at all. I spent a ton of money, four months of lawyers investigating me as if they were prosecuting me. My lawyer Richard Cullen is the former U.S. attorney. We hired him because he was a former U.S. attorney and prosecuted some pretty good cases. They have looked at everything I've got for 20 years, the whole time I've been here.

This is the Justice Department this isn't Texas?

No, this is Richard Cullen, who I hired to investigate me and they spent most of the fall of last year. There is absolutely nothing illegal in my operation. There is nothing untoward. There is nothing unethical.

You hired him to investigate you?

Right, and we also cooperated with the Department of Justice. We have given them everything we've got.

Did they ask for it?

No. We just gave it to them.

You volunteered?

Yes.

What do you mean materials? You mean papers, e-mails?

Yes, e-mails, papers. Anything they would normally want.

How long ago was that, congressman?

This was back in December.

Why would you give them something they didn't ask for?

Why not? Help out on the investigation.

You decided what was relevant based on?

Anything connected to Tony Rudy or Ed Buckham or [Jack] Abramoff or [Michael] Scanlon.

Have you had any contact at all?

None. We haven't spoken. And they have told my lawyers I'm not a target of the investigation. Of course, we have been saying that for three months but the press refuses to write it.

So go through, if you would, your decision not to run.

... After the primary-you get a sixth sense about this stuff. You know your district. You don't need polls when you're a member of Congress. They can sense what's going on. But we ran a poll anyway and the poll showed, basically, that I had a 50/50 chance of winning. Right after the primary I started thinking about...

When was the 50/50 poll?

It was about two weeks after the primary. [A DeLay aide interjects that they also did a poll in mid-December before the primary.]

And what was the difference in the polls?

The one after the primary was slightly worse than the one in December. That wasn't feeling right. I said that I was going to look at it after the primary, because 62%, it was kind of a lift around here, and people gave me a lot of credit for 62%, but for a 21 -year incumbent 62% ain't-I mean it's good-but it should have been 70% plus, 62% means 38% voted against me. So, I wanted a poll done. Did the poll. I was going to spend whatever it took to decide what I was supposed to do, whether to get in or get out. At the beginning, I spent a lot of time in prayer. At the beginning, I spent all my tune in prayer really.

Beginning when?

Right after the primary. And I talked to people that I respect and value and that are closest to me. And I thought right at the primary I was supposed to go through this. What's that saying? Hardened by fire? But as time went on, it was quite evident that I was supposed to evaluate the election and face reality and the reality was many-faceted, but the reality was I wasn't supposed to go through this. I'm supposed to get involved outside the House. I can do more good outside the House in the next few months than being locked in the 22nd District trying to fight reelection.