Judge in DeLay Case Lacks Proper Type of Relativism

Judge Pat Priest, assigned to hear pretrial motions in the DeLay case, is a Democrat. This fact probably led Tom DeLay to expect the hearing on the several charges brought against him to become "a debate about relativism versus absolute truth." The relativism was supposed to be of the moral variety and it was supposed to come from the bench, because remember now, Priest is a Democrat. But sadly for DeLay, Priest doesn't appear to be a relativist when it comes to matters fiduciary. DeLay's lead defense attorney, Dick DeGuerin, staked his argument against money laundering charges on the following "silver bullet."

DeGuerin's other point was that the definition of money laundering did not include checks until 2005. TRMPAC transferred the corporate money to the RNC by check. DeGuerin also argued the money laundering statute could not be applied to the election code.

Priest rejected that argument. He said the indictment refers to "funds" in TRMPAC's checking account and that was the money allegedly laundered.

Priest said even if the money was raised legally, if it was intentionally used to swap with the RNC donations that went to individual candidates "(prosecutors) will have established that the money was laundered."

Darn the luck, they had to go and get them a judge who believes that checks are like money. Of course we shouldn't expect to hear any sort of impugning of Judge Priest's integrity coming out of the DeLay camp. The Hammer would never allow such a thing to happen after proclaiming that "state and federal judges are noble and humble public servants who represent the integrity of America's courts."