Rogue prosecutor Ronnie Earl, the political hack who needed no fewer than six grand juries to indict Tom DeLay on crimes that didn't even exist under state law, doesn't want to let the people have a view into the operations of his office.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle is suing to keep secret the details about his investigation of indicted former House majority leader Tom DeLay.

The Houston Chronicle filed a request under Texas' open records law in March seeking vouchers, hotel and airfare receipts, budget documents, memos and e-mails describing the expenses for the DeLay inquiry and related investigations.

DeLay, indicted last year on conspiracy and money laundering charges connected to the financing of 2002 state legislative races, resigned from Congress on June 9.

Earle, in his attempt to keep details of his investigation out of public view, appealed to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, arguing that releasing the information could compromise the prosecution.

The state's lawyer, who reviewed examples of the information, generally ruled that Earle didn't have to disclose secret information related to grand jury investigations. But the attorney general noted that the public records law requires disclosure of "information in an account, voucher, or contract" relating to the expenditure of public monies, the Austin American-Statesman reported Tuesday.

Now this is the same Ronnie Earle who allowed his investigation to be followed by a friendly documentary producer who has released the film before the trial, prejudicing the ability of Delay to get an impartial jury. But he doesn't want to let the newspaper in the largest city in the state -- the one most read in CD22 -- have access to public douments that would show the lenghts that this latter-day Captain Ahab has gone to harpoon his nemesis.

Furthermore, what is he trying to hide? Any evidence this investigation produced would have to be turned over to the DeLay defense team as a part of discovery. Is he contemplating a (or should I say "another") violation of DeLay's rights by withholding some of that evidence?

Seems to me that Ronnie Earle's refusal to produce document under the Public Information Act is the basis for an independent investigation of the Travis County prosecutor's office, and his conduct in the DeLay case.

Posted by: Greg at 02:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 389 words, total size 3 kb.