Nice Work If You Can Get It

And you can get it if you try. According to the Washington Post:

The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.

DeLay's expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham, according to receipts documenting that portion of the trip.

The article has many more details. DeLay maintains that the trip was paid for by the nonprofit National Center for Public Policy Research. And, since Abramoff was on the board of that organization at the time, and was perhaps reimbursed, there may be an iota of truth in that argument.

On the other hand, I question the legitimacy of "public policy research" nonprofits that have lobbyists on their boards. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that the organization exists primarily to launder money intended for Congresscritter junkets. Why might I think such a thing? Well,

In an article last month about the same trip by DeLay, The Post reported that an Indian tribe and a gambling services company made donations to the National Center for Public Policy Research that covered most of the expenses declared by participants at that time. The article also said these payments were made two months before DeLay voted against legislation opposed by the tribe and the company.

Of course, I'm not the first person to imagine such a problem. Which is why

House ethics rules contain detailed provisions barring the acceptance of any travel funds from private sources if doing so would "create the appearance of using public office for private gain." They also obligate lawmakers to "make inquiry on the source of the funds that will be used to pay" for any travel ostensibly financed by a nonprofit organization -- to rule out the acceptance of reimbursements that come from one organization when a trip is "in fact organized and conducted by someone else."

DeLay declared the trip's purpose as "educational", though I'm unclear on what US public interest subjects a Congressman learns about by staying in luxury hotels and playing golf at St. Andrews. I'm pretty sure we aren't giving foreign aid to Scotland, and since there are receipts for a car and driver, he wasn't even learning about driving on the alternate side of the road. Frankly, the lobbyists could have "educated" him just fine in the US.

Sadly, the ethics committee is in limbo, since the Democrats refuse to play by the bogus changed DeLay's cronies instituted. One could say that DeLay deployed a "tactical nuke" against the ethics committee. Sigh.

Still, you should read the Post article; it's a good peak into the tangled web of insider privilege and mutual backscratching that is DeLay World. It may make you cry, but it'll help you laugh the next time DeLay refers to his troubles as purely partisan manipulation by the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.