Why, oh why does anyone at CNN believe their audience has something to gain by listening to what this slimy character thinks about the Rick Perry indictment? On this Sunday's State of the Union, host Candy Crowley interviewed former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to ask him about Perry, his thoughts on the 2016 presidential primary race and whether or not there's a chance he'll return to politics one of these days when and if he no longer has to worry about being sent to prison.
About the only bit of good news I heard discussed during this interview was the fact that the Texas Court of Criminal appeals is going to hear DeLay's case and review whether the lower court correctly decided to toss out his conviction on money-laundering charges.
DeLay tried to claim the Perry indictment was political and to her credit, he did at least get a small amount of push back from Crowley on that point, but it doesn't begin to make up for the fact that they chose to have him on the show to in the first place.
CROWLEY: The push back I know that you've heard in Texas and elsewhere is, wait a second, the special prosecutor has ties to Republicans, he was appointed by a judge who also has ties to Republicans. How is this political?
DELAY: Well it's political because the investigation was initiated by Rosemary Lehmberg, this rogue DA that runs this office, public integrity unit, in Austin, TX. She initiated the investigation. They appointed a new judge. One judge recused herself and then they appointed another judge. But the crux of whether it's politics or not is look at the law. I'm not a lawyer, but it happened to me too. They want the indictment, then they find a law and twist it. They're using in Rick Perry's case the bribery...
CROWLEY: But I guess the point is that those who are doing, the prosecutor who brought the indictment is not a Democrat in any way anybody can see and in fact has ties to Republicans, so I'm wondering why...
DELAY: That's not true. Candy that's not true. He has ties to Obama. He has ties to the Democrats. He tried to get an appointment...
CROWLEY: And he has ties to Republicans, yes?
DELAY: Well, yeah. But that has nothing to do with this. What has to do with this is you take a law and you twist it so you can get the indictment and that is prosecutorial misconduct, whether you're a Republican or Democrat. This prosecutor was appointed to make this investigation. I don't know what went on behind the scene, but he took the law and he twisted it to make fit the governor who is doing nothing more than vetoing appropriations. That has partisan politics and criminalization of politics written all over it.
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