The paper trail seems so obvious it makes you wonder whether anyone ever worried about getting caught. When Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and his wife flew from Houston to a golf resort in Scotland in June 2000, the first-class airfare cost $14,001, a big-ticket item for a public servant. But someone else paid.
The American Express bills of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges in January, show he footed the bill for the tickets, in an apparent violation of House ethics rules.
DeLay isn’t real bright, is he? Especially since he claimed on Fox that his records were squeaky clean.
Sue, a forenic accountant, says “you always have a choice between ignorant and culpable, as in, ‘I was walking down the street minding my own business, thinking about Jesus, when suddenly his pocket was all around my hand’.”
Forensic accountants laugh at attempted sneakiness this stupid.
Jesse Unruh–he of the insightful quote about lobbiests that “if you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and go out and vote against them the next day, you don’t belong here”–once observed that he was amazed that people came to Sacramento and suddenly thought that the folks at home couldn’t see what they were doing. Sounds like DeLay has the same problem.