The Family & Friends Plan

"We're just following the old adage of punish your enemies and reward your friends." — Thomas Dale DeLay, circa 2003

The testimony of DeLay's daughter, Dani DeLay Garcia, may best illustrate the fuzzy lines that existed between the Congressman, ARMPAC and TRMPAC. In addition to acting as event planner for both organizations, Dani was also DeLay's campaign manager from 1996-2006. Admittedly, she sometimes had difficulty identifying which role she was playing.

For example, at the 2002 Texas Republican Convention in Dallas she was responsible for booking her father's two-bedroom hotel suite. She also stayed in one of those bedrooms. The suite was also used by John Colyandro to conduct interviews with candidates seeking a TRMPAC endorsement. "When you reserved the room," asked the prosecution, "were you acting as Congressman DeLay's campaign manager, or TRMPAC's event planner?" She couldn't recall.

Colyandro and Jim Ellis shared a different room in the same hotel during that convention. "Was it a money saving tactic?" asked DeGuerin during cross-examination. "Yes. They often did that," she explained. "They're related by marriage." One might wonder which of the two PACs paid that bill? Maybe they split it.

While speaking about DeLay's leadership PAC, Dani explained, "his PAC was about getting into the trenches and getting people elected." She also testified, "if Dad told Jim (Ellis) to do something, he would do it."

There were several other things Dani couldn't recall during her testimony though. "It was so many years ago," she responded — over, and over again. She couldn't really remember if she had been paid as an employee or as an independent contractor. She seemed to recall that the status changed more than once. "It had to do with health insurance," she explained. She also couldn't remember the name of her business in 2002. "Was it Coastal Consulting, or Ferro (her last name at the time) Consulting?" she wondered. It was Coastal Consulting. She changed it to Ferro Consulting in 2004.

Understandably, it's got to be tough — really, really tough — testifying as a witness at your own father's conspiracy and money laundering trial. But according to the evidence, Dani was paid more than $130,000 in 2002 for wearing three hats that were undeniably connected in one way or another to Tom DeLay. And, in spite of that, she couldn't even lay claim as to which events she may or may not have organized and/or attended that year.

Dani also had a baby in August of 2002, which could explain her vague recall of political events. Perhaps she had more important things on her mind at the time. But if she knew of her maternal condition earlier in the year, when first taking on the TRMPAC contract, was she irresponsibly spreading herself too thin during an election year?

Speaking of family, here's an item the jury won't be hearing about. In that same year, Tom's wife Christine DeLay was employed as a consultant by Alexander Strategy Group (ASG), a DC-based lobbying firm founded by former DeLay staffer Ed Buckham. Christine worked from home in Texas and her responsibilities included polling member of Congress about their favorite charities. ASG, which shared office space with ARMPAC in Washington, was shut down in 2006 due to suspicious dealings with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. ARMPAC was shut down the same year after settling with the Federal Election Commission over various violations.