It was a political assassination in the first place...

Tom DeLay’s money laundering conviction overturned

A Texas appeals court has overturned former Rep. Tom DeLay’s conviction on money laundering charges, releasing an opinion Thursday morning saying that prosecutors never proved the Texas Republican and one-time powerful majority leader of the House benefited from criminal activity.

The court, in a 2-1 ruling, officially acquitted Mr. DeLay of the charges.

Mr. DeLay was accused of trying to game campaign finance laws to siphon large-dollar corporate donations made to a state political action committee through a national party committee and then back to candidates for federal office in Texas.

But the court ruled that the initial donations were legal, and that the PAC was legally able to transfer the money our of state. And the court also ruled that the money from the national party committee was done from the correct accounts.

“Rather than supporting an agreement to violate the election code, the evidence shows that the defendants were attempting to comply with the Election Code limitations on corporate contributions,” Justice Melissa Goodwin wrote in the majority opinion.

Chief Justice J. Woodfin Jones dissented, saying that the chain of events appears to be “an attempt to circumvent, rather than comply with, election code restrictions.”