E-Accountability: The DeLay case is proving to be a boondoggle for the Administration. We now have more questionable activities attributed to Mr. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, but people with alot of money and members of congress are rallying to his side. We believe that we should document those people and corporations who believe Mr. DeLay is above the law, starting with already indicted Bacardi, U.S.A., and Reliant Energy, a major contributor to the Texas PAC now under investigation.

March 13, 2005
As DeLay's Woes Mount, So Does Money
By PHILIP SHENON and ROBERT PEAR, NY TIMES

WASHINGTON, March 12 - A legal defense fund established by Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, has dramatically expanded its fund-raising effort in recent months, taking in more than $250,000 since the indictment last fall of two his closest political operatives in Texas, according to Mr. DeLay's latest financial disclosure statements.

The list of recent donors includes dozens of Mr. DeLay's House Republican colleagues, including two lawmakers who were placed on the House ethics committee this year, and several of the nation's largest corporations and their executives.

Among the corporate donors to the defense fund is Bacardi U.S.A., the Florida-based rum maker, which has also been indicted in the Texas investigation, and Reliant Energy, another major contributor to a Texas political action committee formed by Mr. DeLay that is the focus of the criminal inquiry. Groups seeking an overhaul of Congressional ethics rules have long complained that companies might seek the favor of powerful lawmakers by contributing to their legal defense funds.

While the disclosure forms show that the defense fund has raised nearly $1 million since its establishment in 2000 and that Mr. DeLay is continuing to pick up generous donations from House Republicans and corporate executives, the documents also suggest that the majority leader's fund-raising efforts could soon be outpaced by ballooning legal bills.

The disclosure statements show that Mr. DeLay, whose title as majority leader makes him the second most powerful Republican in the House and whose fund-raising tactics led the House ethics committee to admonish him last year, paid $370,000 in legal fees last year - $260,000 of it in the final three months of the year.

The fees were divided among lawyers in Washington and Mr. DeLay's home state of Texas, where he is facing scrutiny by a grand jury in Austin over his role in the creation and management of Texans for a Republican Majority, the political action committee that he helped establish in 2001. The committee has been accused of funneling illegal corporate donations to state Republican candidates in the 2002 elections.

The local prosecutor in Austin has refused to rule out criminal charges against Mr. DeLay, who under House rules would be forced to step down from his leadership position if indicted. A grand jury in the case issued indictments last September against James W. Ellis, the director of Mr. DeLay's national political action committee; a major Washington-based fundraiser for Mr. DeLay, Warren M. RoBold; and eight companies that donated to the committee.

Mr. Delay could face new legal bills over a swirl of allegations made against him and other House members, Republicans and Democrats, that they accepted foreign trips from lobbyists and registered foreign agents, in violation of House rules. This week, a coalition of government-watchdog groups, including Common Cause, Judicial Watch and Public Citizen, called for an ethics committee investigation into the travel, which included elaborate trips to Britain and South Korea.

Brent C. Perry, a Houston lawyer who runs the defense fund, known formally as the Tom DeLay Legal Expense Trust, said in an interview that donations continued to flow in this year, despite recent unflattering publicity for Mr. DeLay as a result of the criminal investigation in Texas and continuing attacks on his fundraising activities from Congressional Democrats and campaign-finance watchdog groups. Mr. Perry said he was convinced the fund would have no trouble raising the money needed to pay Mr. DeLay's legal bills.

"There's tremendous support for helping Mr. DeLay pay these bills," he said. "So far we haven't encountered any reluctance."

He suggested that the publicity over Mr. DeLay's legal troubles might actually help in raising money. "Certainly, knowing the need exists doesn't hurt," he said.

Mr. Perry said that while he had no calculations of Mr. DeLay's legal expenses so far this year, the lawyers' bills for the first three months of the year would be less than for the last quarter of 2004, largely because the House ethics committee ended a major investigation of Mr. DeLay last year. As a result of that inquiry, the committee admonished Mr. DeLay for appearing to link political donations to support for legislation involving the energy industry.

A review of the legal defense fund's quarterly disclosure statements dating back to its founding five years ago suggests that Mr. DeLay has been nearly as aggressive raising money to pay his legal bills as he has been as a fund-raiser for Republican candidates for Congress.

More than two-thirds of the donations raised in the last quarter of 2004 came from current and former members of Congress, all of them Republicans, and their political action committees.

The biggest Congressional donors to Mr. DeLay's defense fund since its creation are: Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House Republican whip, who has contributed a total of $20,000; Representative Henry Bonilla of Texas, $15,000, and former Representative Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, $15,000. Mr. Tauzin left Congress to become president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the main drug company lobby

"I proudly support majority leader DeLay's legal effort to defend himself from these politically motivated attacks," said Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who contributed $5,000 to the fund last year. "The majority leader's conservative values and his effectiveness as a legislator have made him the top target for Democrats' frivolous ethics allegations."

Two other House Republican donors, Lamar Smith of Texas, who has given $10,000 to Mr. DeLay, and Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who gave $5,000, were placed on the House ethics committee this year, a move that drew criticism from House Democrats given the possibility that it might investigate the majority leader.

A spokesman for Mr. DeLay, Dan Allen, said there was no conflict of interest for the majority leader in accepting donations for his legal fees from large companies or from House colleagues. The contributions, Mr. Allen said, "were an acknowledgement that Congressman DeLay is a fixture within the conservative movement and has been a very effective leader, which makes him an inviting target for liberals and Democrat."

The list of corporate donors to the fund includes several large national companies, among them AMR, the parent company of American Airlines; Bell South; Coors Brewing; Exxon Mobil, and Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.

Some of the corporate donors have also become entangled in the grand jury investigation in Texas that is focused on Texans for a Republican Majority and the role of Mr. DeLay and several of his political operatives in its management.

The disclosure statements show that Bacardi U.S.A., which has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges in Texas, has contributed a total of $3,000 to help pay Mr. DeLay's legal bills. Reliant Energy of Houston, another major contribution, and its subsidiaries have donated a total of $20,000 to the defense fund.

Pat Hammond, a Reliant spokeswoman, said the company had recently changed its senior management "and because of that, we can't comment on what might have motivated the previous management to make a contribution." She said, "This team is committed to conducting its business with integrity and putting some of the matters from the past behind us." A spokeswoman for Bacardi did not return phone calls for comment.

Documents introduced into evidence in a civil trial in Texas last month showed that Mr. DeLay had a larger role in raising corporate donations for the political action committee than previously known.

The documents, subpoenaed from the files of an indicted former fund-raiser for Mr. Delay as a result of a civil lawsuit against the political action committee, suggested that Mr. DeLay or someone in his Washington office had accepted a $25,000 check from Reliant in 2002 that was forwarded to Texans for a Republican Majority, and that he had a direct role in soliciting contributions from other corporations on the committee's behalf.

In his most detailed comments to date about the grand jury investigation, Mr. DeLay said at a news conference in Washington this week that he was among the people responsible for the creation of the committee - "it was my idea, or it was our idea" - and that all of the group's fund-raising activities had been carefully reviewed by lawyers.

"When you have lawyers advising you every step of the way in writing, it is very hard to make a case stick," he said, describing the earlier indictments in the Texas investigation as "frivolous."

House Ethics Panel in Gridlock
Democrats Refuse to Participate Under New GOP Rules
By Mike Allen, Washington Post Staff Writer, March 11, 2005

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The House, facing new controversy about the travel of Majority Leader Tom DeLay and other lawmakers, was left last night with no mechanism for investigating improper behavior by its members when Democrats shut down the ethics committee by refusing to accept Republican rules changes that restrict the panel's power.

Democrats said they do not plan to allow the ethics committee to organize until Republicans repeal a series of rule changes they pushed through in January, making it more difficult to initiate an investigation unless at least one Republican member supports the probe.

The committee met in secret for 2 1/2 hours. It was the first meeting since House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) replaced the chairman and two other members with lawmakers more loyal to the leadership. "These rules undermine the ability of the committee to do its job," Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.), the panel's top Democrat, said in an interview after a 5 to 5 vote that stalemated action. "An ethics committee has to do a good job if it's going to do any job at all."

The standoff followed a Washington Post report that DeLay accepted a trip to South Korea in 2001 from a group that had registered as a foreign agent. House rules prohibit members from taking gifts from such groups. The ethics committee has admonished DeLay three times in the past year for official misconduct, and some ethics experts believe that the latest revelation could trigger another investigation.

Justice Department documents show that the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, a business-financed entity, registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on Aug. 22, 2001. DeLay; his wife, Christine; and two other Republican lawmakers departed on a trip financed by the group on Aug. 25 of that year.

At least seven other House members, from both parties, took the trips. Yesterday, former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger resigned from the board of the group. A Kissinger aide said he had not known about the registration as an agent of a foreign government or political party.

The exchange council, founded in 2001 under the charities section of the tax code, is largely funded by a South Korean holding company -- Hanwha Group -- and has another prominent board member in Edward J. Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation.

Sources familiar with the operations of the exchange council said yesterday that the group apparently did not need to file under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and is exploring how to rescind its registration so that lawmakers would be free to accept its trips. Such a move might also mitigate the potential ethical issues for the lawmakers from both parties who have accepted trips to Korea over the past four years, the sources said.

The council said in a statement that it is "examining whether such registration was ever appropriate for an organization like KORUSEC."

"Members of Congress were assured by KORUSEC that these exchanges met with the approval of the [ethics committee], as we believed to be the case," the statement said. "We regret if we were in error and are moving with dispatch to take the necessary corrective action."

The 10-member House ethics panel, formally the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, is unique among committees in that it is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats are resisting rule changes the House made in January that make it more difficult to open investigations. Until January, a tie meant that an inquiry was automatically triggered, now a majority must approve it.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said her party is backing a resolution to "overturn what the Republicans did on that opening day and to make the ethics process indeed bipartisan again."

In a clear reference to DeLay, Pelosi said at her weekly news conference: "In order for whatever accommodation they wanted to make for whoever they wanted to make it, there is no ethics process under the rules that they have put forth."

Pelosi, who has an aide who accepted a trip from the exchange group last fall, said the committee should look into DeLay's handling of the matter but made no mention of her aide.

"This will be a challenge to this new order or lack of order in the ethics committee," she said. The committee "has had a coup launched against it where they removed the chairman and took out two Republican members of the committee, replacing them with people who have already contributed thousands of dollars to Mr. DeLay's defense fund. Is this ethics committee capable of reviewing matters regarding Mr. DeLay that are now in the public domain?"

Ron Bonjean, communications director for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said it was unclear last night how the logjam could be broken. "Democrats have chosen to shut down the ethics process," he said. "It's up to the House Democrats to put the ethics process above partisan politics."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Gambling Interests Funded DeLay Trip
Later in 2000, Lawmaker's Vote Helped Defeat Regulatory Measure
By James V. Grimaldi and R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 12, 2005

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An Indian tribe and a gambling services company made donations to a Washington public policy group that covered most of the cost of a $70,000 trip to Britain by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), his wife, two aides and two lobbyists in mid-2000, two months before DeLay helped kill legislation opposed by the tribe and the company.

The sponsor of the week-long trip listed in DeLay's financial disclosures was the nonprofit National Center for Public Policy Research, but a person involved in arranging DeLay's travel said that lobbyist Jack Abramoff suggested the trip and then arranged for checks to be sent by two of his clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and eLottery Inc.

The dates on the checks coincided with the day DeLay left on the trip, May 25, 2000, according to grants documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The Choctaw and eLottery each sent a check for $25,000, according to the documents. They now say that they were unaware the money was being used to finance DeLay's travels.

But Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center, said that, when the trip was arranged, Abramoff promised he would secure financial backing. She said that even without Abramoff's efforts, the National Center would have borne the cost of the trip, which was intended to allow the group to network with conservative British politicians and included an outing to the famous St. Andrews golf course in Scotland.

"We paid for the trip," Ridenour said. "This trip was going to be paid for by the National Center, regardless of whether we got the donations from the Choctaw or eLottery."

House ethics rules allow lawmakers and their staffs to have travel expenses paid only for officially connected travel and only by organizations directly connected to the trips. The rules also require that lawmakers accurately report the people or organizations that pay for the trips. They prohibit payments by registered lobbyists for lawmakers' travel.

DeLay's spokesman, Dan Allen, said: "The trip was sponsored, organized and paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, as our travel disclosures accurately reflect and what the National Center has publicly said."

Abramoff's attorney, Abbe David Lowell, declined to comment. Abramoff, the National Center and the flow of money between them are now being investigated by a federal task force and by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs; DeLay was admonished three times last year for infringements of House ethics rules.

To prove an ethics violation, investigators would have to show that DeLay and his staff knew the gambling interests were funding the trip, said Jan W. Baran, a Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP ethics lawyer who often represents Republicans. "If somebody is doing some backdoor financing, how would the member know?"

Abramoff, a member of the National Center's board, joined the DeLays on the May 25 to June 3, 2000, trip, which DeLay's congressional office has said included a stop in London and a visit with Margaret Thatcher, along with the golf outing at St. Andrews, where colleagues say Abramoff has a membership.

DeLay, an avid golfer, listed the purpose of the trip on a report filed with the House clerk as "educational." He was majority whip at the time and brought his wife, Christine, and two top staff members -- Tony Rudy from the whip's office and chief of staff Susan Hirschmann, as well as her husband, David Hirschmann, according to filings with the House clerk that indicated the total cost of transportation, lodging and meals was $70,265.

Internet Gambling Bill Killed

Two months later, in July 2000, DeLay and 43 other Republicans joined 114 Democrats in killing the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, which would have made it a federal crime to place certain bets over the Internet and was opposed by eLottery and the Choctaws. The bill was supported by 165 Republicans and 79 Democrats but fell about 25 votes short of passage; because of a parliamentary maneuver, it required a two-thirds majority vote.

DeLay spokesman Allen said that DeLay voted against the bill because it had exemptions for jai alai and horse and dog racing. Rudy later that year went to work for Abramoff as a lobbyist.

The Choctaw Indians run a highly profitable casino near Philadelphia, Miss., that bankrolls their community activities and has subsidized an extensive lobbying effort in Washington. The tribe donated a total of $65,000 to Ridenour's group in 2000 and $1.07 million in 2002.

The Choctaw money was intended to help the center create a program to build support for the idea that Indian casinos could drive prosperity for poor tribes, Ridenour said. "We were trying to tell the Choctaw story," she said. On its Web site, the center attributes the following statement to DeLay: "The National Center is The Center for conservative communications."

Asked about the DeLay trip to Britain, tribal lawyer Bryant Rogers said: "The tribe did not authorize the use of any money for this purpose. . . . If it occurred, it occurred without the tribe's knowledge."

ELottery is a Connecticut company that provides Internet services to state lotteries. One version of the gambling legislation contained a provision that would have severely restricted state lottery sales over the Internet. Edwin J. McGuinn, president of eLot Inc., the parent of eLottery, said the provision would have killed his company. "We wouldn't have been able to operate," he said.

McGuinn said he was unaware that eLottery's $25,000 check was meant to pay for DeLay's trip. Of the donation to the National Center, he said: "It certainly was our impression that any and all moneys were being positioned to get the attention and focus of our cause."

DeLay today describes himself as a longtime opponent of any expansion of gambling. But in a House floor speech six months after his trip to Britain, he praised the head of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians as a "champion of peace and prosperity" and placed in the Congressional Record an editorial praising chief Phillip Martin for enriching the tribe through the "construction of a casino."

The editorial, from the magazine Indian Country Today, noted that Martin had also wisely positioned his tribe "to solidify friendships with Republican powerhouses." It said -- in an apparent reference to Abramoff -- that the tribe and its chief had hired "quality lobbyists as their new wealth allowed" and successfully persuaded Republican leaders that the tribal revenue from gambling and other ventures should not be taxed.

Three and a half weeks after DeLay's Jan. 3, 2001, speech saluting Martin "for all he has done to further the cause of freedom," at least one of DeLay's aides went on a trip via private jet to the Super Bowl in Tampa arranged and financed by one of Abramoff's companies. Sources familiar with the trip said the guests were also taken out to an Abramoff-owned gambling ship that was anchored near Tampa.

No one on DeLay's staff filed a report disclosing the trip, a task required by House rules for "the receipt of travel expenses from private sources" but not for government-funded or political travel.

DeLay spokesman Allen said: "The staffer went down to participate in a National Republican Congressional Committee party, so it was considered political travel. The staffer never saw Abramoff during the trip."

The Internet gambling legislation was the only issue Abramoff and his employer at the time, Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP, mentioned in lobbying disclosure records when they reported earning $440,000 in fees from eLottery in 2000. The Internet gambling bill was one of several legislative issues listed in a separate lobbying disclosure for the firm's efforts on behalf of the Choctaw, which paid Preston Gates $880,000 in 2000.

Expense Voucher Submitted

The trip to Britain by the DeLays previously attracted notice because Abramoff submitted an expense voucher to Preston Gates seeking a reimbursement of $12,789.73 to cover expenses for meals, hotels and transportation incurred by the DeLays, the Hirschmanns and a former DeLay chief of staff -- lobbyist Ed Buckham -- who also went on the trip.

House ethics rules prohibit registered lobbyists such as Abramoff from paying for a lawmaker's expenses. But the Preston Gates records state that Abramoff told his firm he paid $4,285.35 for the DeLays' stay at London's Four Seasons Hotel, plus $5,174.64 for the Hirschmanns' stay. He also reported spending $800 on transportation for the group between May 25 and May 29.

The existence of the voucher and a portion of its contents were reported last month in the National Journal. The voucher's tally of expenses differs from the account given by DeLay in a signed report to the House clerk on June 30, 2000, in which he reported that total lodging for the couple over nine nights cost Ridenour's group $3,840. Susan Hirschmann's separate, signed report also gave a different figure from Abramoff; she stated that lodging expenses for her husband and her for this period amounted to $3,360.

Both the DeLays and the Hirschmanns reported their meal expenses during the trip as $2,000 per person, or roughly $200 a day.

Last week, DeLay told reporters that he had reported the trip "as we are supposed to do." He said that, to his knowledge, the National Center "paid for the trip."

DeLay told Cox News Service earlier this month: "I went to London to meet with conservatives in England and Scotland and talk about the things we had been doing in the Republican, conservative House. They wanted to dialogue to see if they could adopt some the things that we had done."

A person who went on the trip but spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the controversy said that DeLay talked with Thatcher about her efforts to help end the Cold War and with others about trade issues. An aide to Thatcher confirmed that the meeting occurred.

Abramoff was a member of the board of the National Center from about 1997 until last October, when the center accepted his resignation.

Stanley Brand, a former Democratic counsel to the House and an ethics specialist, said arrangements in which funds are passed through an intermediary to pay for a lawmaker's travels breach ethics rules if the lawmaker who benefited "knew or should have known" the origin of funds.

Brand said the House ethics committee, if it opens an investigation, would have to decide whether the circumstances of the travel "should have put a reasonable person on notice that it was paid for by someone else."

Researchers Alice Crites, Lucy Shackelford and Don Pohlman contributed to this report.

Political Groups Paid Two Relatives of House Leader
By PHILIP SHENON, NY TIMES, April 6, 2005

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WASHINGTON, April 5 - The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay's political action and campaign committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in Mr. DeLay's home state, Texas.

Most of the payments to his wife, Christine A. DeLay, and his only child, Dani DeLay Ferro, were described in the disclosure forms as "fund-raising fees," "campaign management" or "payroll," with no additional details about how they earned the money. The payments appear to reflect what Mr. DeLay's aides say is the central role played by the majority leader's wife and daughter in his political career.

Mr. DeLay's national political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, or Armpac, said in a statement on Tuesday that the two women had provided valuable services to the committee in exchange for the payments: "Mrs. DeLay provides big picture, long-term strategic guidance and helps with personnel decisions. Ms. Ferro is a skilled and experienced professional event planner who assists Armpac in arranging and organizing individual events."

Mrs. Ferro has managed several of her father's re-election campaigns for his House seat.

His spokesman said that Mr. DeLay had no additional comment. Although several members of Congress employ family members as campaign managers or on their political action committees, advocacy groups seeking an overhaul of federal campaign-finance and ethics laws say that the payments to Mr. DeLay's family members were unusually generous, and should be the focus of new scrutiny of the Texas congressman.

Mr. DeLay, whose position as majority leader makes him the second-most-powerful House member, has offered a vigorous public defense in recent weeks to a flurry of ethics accusations from Democratic lawmakers and campaign watchdog groups, including charges that he violated House rules on travel. The executive director of Americans for a Republican Majority and a major fund-raiser for the committee were indicted in Texas last year on charges of illegal fund-raising, and prosecutors there have refused to rule out the possibility of charges against Mr. DeLay in the continuing inquiry.

In recent weeks, public interest groups have called on the House ethics committee and the Justice Department to review lavish, privately financed overseas trips for Mr. DeLay and his aides, including a 1997 trip to Russia that was underwritten by a conservative education group closely linked to a powerful Republican lobbyist who often boasted of his influence with the majority leader.

The payments to Mr. DeLay's family have continued into 2005; the latest monthly disclosure filed by Americans for a Republican Majority shows Mrs. DeLay was paid was paid $4,028 last month, while Mrs. Ferro received $3,681. Earlier statements show that the two women received similar monthly fees from the political action committee throughout 2003 and 2004.

Mrs. DeLay has been involved in her husband's political career and his fund-raising operations in Washington and Texas. In an interview in 2003 with Roll Call, a newspaper on Capitol Hill, a spokesman for Mr. DeLay explained Mrs. DeLay's role as "the final signoff of Tom's travel schedule, what events he attends and what his name appears on."

Mrs. Ferro has also helped manage Mr. DeLay's charity operations. Financial disclosure statements filed by Mr. DeLay's House campaign committees, which are separate from Americans for a Republican Majority, show that Mrs. Ferro and her political consulting firm, Coastal Consulting of Sugar Land, Tex., received $222,000 from 2001 through last year, reflecting her role in the re-election campaigns.

Although there has been no suggestion from prosecutors that Mrs. Ferro is under investigation by the grand jury in Austin, her records were subpoenaed in the inquiry, which is focused on the fund-raising activities of Texans for a Republican Majority, a state political action committee modeled on Americans for a Republican Majority. Mrs. Ferro received about $30,000 in fund-raising and consulting fees from Texans for a Republican Majority, the committee's records show.

"It's DeLay Inc. " said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a research group that has closely monitored Mr. DeLay and his campaign fund-raising and expenditures. "If it's not illegal, it certainly is inappropriate for members of Congress to use their positions to enrich their families."

Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics and a former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, said that "questions are raised anytime a politician puts close family members on the payroll."

Republican lawmakers can point to prominent Democrats whose campaign and political action committees have provided lucrative jobs or consulting contracts to family members. Representative Howard L. Berman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House ethics committee from 1997 to 2003, paid $50,000 from his campaign accounts last year to a consulting firm owned by his brother, according to disclosure forms. Disclosure statements also show that Senator Barbara Boxer, another California Democrat, directed $15,000 from her political action committee in 2003 to a consulting firm run by her son.

Several public interest groups have called in recent weeks for the House ethics committee or another body that may be examining his finances to open an investigation of Mr. DeLay, focused in part on his privately financed overseas travels, including the 1997 trip to Moscow and a 2000 trip to Britain. Questions about the trips' financing were first raised in March in an article in the National Journal.

Mr. DeLay has denied that he violated House rules in accepting the 2000 trip from a conservative education group associated with one of the city's most powerful Republican lobbyists, Jack Abramoff.

The nonprofit education group, the National Center for Public Policy Research, has said it received large contributions from Mr. Abramoff's clients about the time of the trips, although it has denied that the donations were redirected to finance Mr. DeLay's travels.

The trip to Moscow, according to the American Foreign Policy Council report, was backed by the energy companies that had ties to the Russian government and that were trying to build support in Washington for Russian privatization efforts and trade policies.

Mr. DeLay met with Russian business and political leaders. House financial disclosure statements show that Mr. DeLay's travel costs totaled $9,029 and that the costs for five members of his staff totaled $55,033. It listed the sponsor as the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Bobby R. Burchfield, a lawyer for Mr. DeLay, declined to comment, as did the National Center for Public Policy Research. Jonathan Blank, managing partner at Preston Gates & Ellis in Washington, said the firm had represented Chelsea but would not discuss whether the organization had helped pay for Mr. DeLay's trip.

Dan Allen, a spokesman for Mr. DeLay, said the congressman had filed forms stating that the Moscow and Britain trips were paid by the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Eric Lipton and Monica Borkowski contributed reporting for this article

We sadly post our January story about a temporary win for ethics:
House Republicans Pull Back and Decide Not to Protect Tom DeLay. The Ethics Warriors Win

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