Now I don’t consider this to be a big deal. If Tom DeLay could have made all of this go away via a misdemeanor plea to an obscure violation of campaign finance law, no one other than the most partisan Democrat would have considered it to be a substantial problem.

Lawyers for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) tried unsuccessfully in late September to head off felony criminal indictments against the then-majority leader on charges of violating Texas campaign law by signaling that DeLay might plead guilty to a misdemeanor, according to four sources familiar with the events.

The lawyers' principal aim was to try to preserve DeLay's leadership position under House Republican rules that bar lawmakers accused of felonies from holding such posts. DeLay was forced to step down as leader on Sept. 28 after the first of two grand jury indictments.

The last-minute negotiations between the lawyers and Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle were arranged after DeLay made what Earle considered a seriously damaging admission about his fundraising activities during an Aug. 17 meeting with the prosecutor in Austin.

Now what was the “damaging admission”?

At that session, DeLay acknowledged that in 2002 he was informed about and expressed his support for transfers of $190,000 in mostly corporate funds from his Texas political action committee to an arm of the Republican National Committee in Washington and then back to Texas, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be named.

Those transfers are at the heart of the prosecutor's investigation of the alleged use of corporate funds in the 2002 Texas elections, in violation of state law. In the prosecutor's view, DeLay's admission put him in the middle of a conspiracy not only to violate that law but also to launder money.

Now the problem is that Earle is making a really big leap here – arguing that DeLay’s support for the move after it was underway constitutes a conspiracy.

Asked what his role was in creating TRMPAC, DeLay said it was his vision and his idea, the sources said. But he reiterated that he knew only in general terms about its day-to-day operations. DeLay said he was also generally aware of a plan to shift money between Texas and Washington. It called for pulling together $190,000, sending it up to Washington and getting the same amount sent back to Texas for state election campaigns.

According to matching accounts provided separately by the sources, DeLay was asked whether such a deal happened and responded yes. Asked if he knew beforehand that the deal was going to happen, DeLay said yes. Asked how he knew, DeLay said that his longtime political adviser, Ellis, came into his office, told him it was planned and asked DeLay what he thought. DeLay told Earle that he recalled saying, "Fine." He added that he knew it was corporate money but said it was fine because he thought it was legal.

In other words, DeLay did not conceive the plan, he took no part in implementing the plan, and his only response was to say he thought the plan was fine because he believed that the plan was legal – and based upon the practices of Democratic PACs in the state of Texas, that was a legitimate belief. I’d even be willing to bet that the plan had been thoroughly vetted with the group’s lawyers long before any transfers were made. But most importantly, there is clearly no evidence of intent to violate the law, nor of a desire to violate the law. Even more importantly, one would be hard pressed to make this acknowledgement into a conspiratorial move.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect is that Ronnie Earle wanted a guilty plea without either party being certain that the actions in question even constituted a crime.

The principal reason the deal foundered was that DeLay's attorneys wanted to postpone his plea until after the Texas appellate courts had ruled on the validity of the state election law provisions at issue, the sources said. Under their proposal, if the courts agreed the law was invalid, then all charges would be dismissed and the promise of a plea forgotten. For the two years it might take to resolve the issue, DeLay would be able to keep his post.

Earle insisted instead that DeLay enter a plea with the court immediately. He was willing only to defer punishment until appeals related to the validity of the law were exhausted; striking any other deal would show undue favoritism to DeLay, several sources said he argued. But DeLay's defense team felt such a decision would gravely damage the majority leader's political standing.

In other words, Earle wanted an admission of criminal conduct without there being a ruling on the proper manner of construing the statute. He was more concerned with getting the plea he wanted than with getting it right. That is clearly a sign of an unethical prosecutor who is out of control.

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