Unless the Justice Department can track down some actual quid-pro-quo related to this, I believe that it will be one more blind alley in the continuing DeLay saga.

A registered lobbyist opened a retirement account in the late 1990s for the wife of then-House Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and contributed thousands of dollars to it while also paying her a salary to work for him from her home in Texas, according to sources, documents and DeLay's attorney, Richard Cullen.

The account represents a small portion of the income that DeLay's family received from entities at least partly controlled by lobbyist Edwin A. Buckham. But the disclosure of its origin adds to what was previously known about the benefits DeLay's family received from its association with Buckham, and it brings the total over the past seven years to about half a million dollars.

Buckham was DeLay's chief of staff before he became a lobbyist at the end of 1998, shortly before the account was opened and the flow of funds began. He has come under scrutiny from federal investigators because his lobbying firm received hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from clients of indicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Buckham's financial ties to DeLay's family -- and the retirement account in particular -- have recently attracted the interest of FBI agents and others in the federal task force probing public corruption by lawmakers and lobbyists, according to a source who was questioned in the course of the government's investigation.

Looks damning, doesn't it -- until you realize that the sums in question, received over 7 years, are just about right for the amount of work done by the Congressman's wife and daughter, boh of whom did work for Buckham's company. The sums involved are not outrageous, and are probably normal payments of salary and benefits.

Even the Post makes something of a concession in this regard concerning the retirement account in question.

Cullen said the retirement account was required for Buckham's employees under Internal Revenue Service rules. But investigators are looking at Buckham's role in establishing the account and at whether the lawmaker may have performed official acts in return for any of the income arranged by Buckham, according to the source. DeLay denies any wrongdoing.

Required by the Federal Government. That puts a whole new aspect on it -- and only took them five paragraphs to get to that point. But the Justice Department is looking into it anyway. There is no actual evidence of any wrong-doing on anyone's part, and the payments are legal permitted under House ethics rules and are legal under federal law. And such payments will happen until we make it illegal for spouses and other family members of government officials to be involved in politics or government, or be employed at all.

But that said, I am counting the hours until Delay's departure from office and removal from teh balot happen -- and cannot wait for the selection of the new GOP candidate for the November ballot.