Ka-ching!

The jurors heard testimony from 12 witnesses representing companies who had made contributions to TRMPAC and/or ARMPAC in 2002. The corporate fundraiser for both organizations was Warren Robold. He began working with ARMPAC in 2000 and added TRMPAC to his roster of clients two years later.

"Government is our customer," said Paul Doucette of Houston-based Cornell Companies, a private corrections provider. Doucette got the impression from Cornell's lobbyist that "contributing to TRMPAC was a good idea because it was DeLay's leadership PAC." 

Actually, ARMPAC was DeLay's leadership PAC, but the two are easily confused. They shared the same fundraiser, the same event planner, and the same DC address.

Christine Pellerin, Director of Federal Affairs at MWW Group, a healthcare lobbying organization, told the jury "my understanding was that ARMPAC and TRMPAC were both leadership PACS associated with Tom DeLay. Because Robold was involved, Pellerin was under the impression that DeLay had requested their donation.

Penelope Cate was VP of Government & Community Affairs at Sears in 2002. Her job was "monitoring legislation, and, where appropriate, trying to influence it." She coordinated campaign donations from Sears corporate account (soft money) as well as its own employee funded PAC (hard money). "We didn't usually volunteer to give money," recalled Cate. She remembered Robold calling her about a new leadership PAC (TRMPAC) and wondering if Sears could contribute to it.

Some of the witnesses attended a weekend golf outing at The Homestead in Hot Springs, VA. The flyer described it as an ARMPAC event with Tom DeLay as the headliner, also to include a welcome reception and update on federal energy policy.

One attendee was Glenn Jackson from the Williams Companies, a leading natural gas corporation. Office manager Suzanne Treis processed the check for their $25K contribution and vividly recalled what happened the day the request passed her desk. "We thought it was an ARMPAC event, but I phoned Dani (DeLay) and she told me the check should be made out to TRMPAC — another of her father's leadership PACs."

Clarence Albright of Reliant Energy also attended the Homestead event. "DeLay was a pro-business supporter of energy who understood the needs of the industry. We budgeted for annual contributions and ARMPAC was always part of that. We had $50K budgeted." When Robold asked if Reliant could split their donation with half going to ARMPAC and the other half to TRMPAC Albright responded, "it made no difference to him."

In the end, no matter which vehicle they used, corporations were throwing money at Congressman Tom DeLay in order to gain influence with him. Would they have been disappointed to know in some cases their dollars were rerouted to the RNSEC then redistributed among candidates unknown to them? Or, did their donations actually benefit Texan legislators as intended?