DeLay arraignment is postponed
Defense presses its request for judge's recusal
AUSTIN, Texas -- Former House majority leader Tom DeLay appeared in court yesterday for the first time in a money laundering and conspiracy case against him, but his arraignment was postponed after his lawyer asked the judge, a Democrat, to recuse himself.
In a brief statement read to reporters afterward, DeLay, a Republican, harshly denounced the prosecutor in the case, Ronnie Earle, and predicted that he ''will be absolutely exonerated."
As DeLay sat quietly with his wife in the Travis County courtroom, Judge Bob Perkins accepted the congressman's $10,000 bail and questioned his lead attorney, Dick DeGuerin, about a recusal motion filed Thursday.
Standing before the judge, DeGuerin noted that Perkins had contributed to MoveOn.org, a liberal fund-raising and interest group that has supported Democratic candidates.
DeGuerin said he noticed Thursday that MoveOn.org was ''selling T-shirts with Mr. DeLay's mug shot on it to raise money."
Perkins replied: ''Let me just say I haven't ever seen that T-shirt, number one. Number two, I haven't bought it. Number three, the last time I contributed to MoveOn that I know of was prior to the November election last year when they were primarily helping Senator [John] Kerry."
MoveOn.org later issued a statement denying that it was selling such T-shirts and accusing DeLay and his lawyer of ''making things up."
Tom Matzzie, Washington director of MoveOn.org Political Action, said in the statement: ''We're not selling T-shirts. DeGuerin has either bad information or lied in court." He called DeLay ''a key part of the culture of corruption in Washington" and said Congress ''will be a better place" without him.
Perkins said he would ask another judge to hear the recusal motion. DeLay did not speak during the brief court appearance and was not asked to enter a plea.
Earle indicated afterward that he opposes the defense motion. ''Membership in a political party does not determine the quality of justice in this country," he said.
If the defense had its way, a judge who ''contributed to Crime Stoppers . . . could not hear a burglary case," Earle said. ''Carried to its extreme, that is what I think this motion means, and I think that's absurd."
DeLay surrendered Thursday to the county sheriff's office in Houston. He was then photographed, fingerprinted, and released, three weeks after becoming the sole member of the House leadership in Washington to be indicted in at least 50 years.
The booking of one of the nation's most powerful politicians was forced by an arrest warrant issued Wednesday by a district court here in the state's capital, in preparation for DeLay's eventual trial on felony criminal charges of money laundering and conspiracy related to the allegedly illegal use of corporate funds in the 2002 state election.
In the statement he read outside the courthouse after his appearance yesterday, DeLay asserted that the case against him was politically motivated.
He said it was brought ''because Ronnie Earle and the Democrat Party could not beat me at the ballot box."
DeLay said: ''In short, I have been charged for defeating Democrats. I have been charged for advocating constitutional representation. And I have been charged for advancing the Republican agenda. . . . I will fight this prosecutor's abuse of the legal system, and I will be absolutely exonerated."
He did not take questions from reporters after reading the statement. 