One would assume that a prosecutor would need to actually have the document that proves his case before he gets an indictment. Not Ronnie Earle -- who is lacking a key document in his case against Tom DeLay and therefore plans on using a similar document that apparently is not connected to the activities for which DeLlay was indicted in an attempt to prove his guilt.

Travis County prosecutors admitted Friday they lack physical proof of a list of Republican candidates that is at the heart of money-laundering indictments against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and two of his associates.

The list is key to prosecutors being able to prove that corporate money that could not be legally spent on Texas candidates was specifically exchanged at the national level for donations that legally could be spent on Republican candidates for the Texas House.

So the only thing that they are lacking in the case is -- proof.

But not to worry, there is this OTHER document that htey will substitute for the one that would actually prove that Delay and his associates committed a crime.

Indictments against DeLay, Jim Ellis and John Colyandro state that Ellis gave "a document that contained the names of several candidates for the Texas House" to a Republican National Committee official in 2002 in a scheme to swap $190,000 in restricted corporate money for the same amount of money from individuals that could be legally used by Texas candidates.

But prosecutors said Friday in court that they only had a "similar" list and not the one allegedly received by then-RNC Deputy Director Terry Nelson. Late in the day, they released a list of 17 Republican candidates, but only seven are alleged to have received money in the scheme.

A lawyer for Ellis said prosecutors' inability to produce the list mentioned in the indictments is on par with the tactics used by U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the communist witch hunts of the 1950s.

I would argue that what we have going on is less like the McCarthy hearings and closer to Stalin's show trials of the 1930s. After all, McCarthy's central premise about Communist infiltration of the government has since been proven essentially correct by records released after the fall of the Soviet Union. Stalin, on the other hand, simply wanted to bring down his political enemies and rivals.

Dick DeGuerin, who is defnding DeLay, makes this observation.

DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin of Houston, was not present in court Friday. But he later said the lack of a list "destroys" District Attorney Ronnie Earle's case against the three men.

"That's astonishing, astonishing that they would get a grand jury to indict and allege there is a list and then they have to admit in open court the first time they appear in open court that there is no list," DeGuerin said.

Thes indictments need to be dismissed, and Ronnie Earle and any lawyer from the Travis County DA's office involved in the case or investigation need to be disbarred or face other serious sanctions. You cannot indict someone based upon evidence you do not have.