Washington lobbyists are being asked to get in the bunker, literally, for former colleagues charged with violating Texas campaign laws.
A golf event and luncheon, scheduled for Wednesday at a Virginia country club, is to raise money for the legal defense fund for John Colyandro, Jim Ellis and Warren Robold, former consultants to Texans for a Republican Majority. The three, indicted last fall by a Travis County grand jury, are close allies or former staffers of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, who has tapped lobbyists to pay for his own legal defense against allegations that he has accepted illegal trips from lobbyists.
The event, organized by prominent Republican fundraiser Mark Valente III, gives lobbyists and others a chance to help DeLay's associates without disclosing it to the public. Unlike DeLay, the three defendants are not public officials, so money raised privately goes largely unreported. However, members of Congress or political action committees would have to disclose their donations on their own public campaign reports.
"It's unregulated and unreported," said Public Citizen's Craig Holman of the defense fund. "For the defendants, it's just who can they get to give them money."
http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/elxpacs/19trmpac.html (Reg. Req.)
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