September 30, 2005
Did Nancy Pelosi stick it to Tom DeLay?
Is Pelosi behind DeLay's indictment?
Tom DeLay appeared on "Hardball" with Chris Matthews and accused Rep. Nancy Pelosi of involvement in his Texas grand jury indictment on conspiracy charges. Below is the transcript [LINK]:
MATTHEWS: No, but you have said that there's a coordinated attack on you involving the leadership of the House on the Democratic side now. Is Pelosi involved?
DELAY: Yes.
MATTHEWS: What's her role in this?
DELAY: I don't know. Ask her. But they announced it. It is on their Web site that they were going to come after me. And they — and it is in all their fund-raising mails, of how they're going to...
MATTHEWS: Oh, I know you're a target of all the fund-raising. You're like Ted Kennedy from the other side. They go after you.
DELAY: I'm not complaining. I'm just saying, this is what they're doing. I guarantee you, people like Martin Frost, Lloyd Doggett...
MATTHEWS: They're still mad at you, aren't they?
DELAY: Pete Laney, the former speaker of the...
MATTHEWS: These are the losers in your campaign to rebuild the Republican Party of Texas.
DELAY: That's exactly — exactly right.
MATTHEWS: And those guys are those guys who all lost their seats because you managed to win the redistricting in the Texas legislature, because you managed to get so many Republicans elected in the legislature. They're all out to get you.
DELAY: That is right.
MATTHEWS: And this is part of it.
DELAY: This is the punishment for winning the Texas House
and redistricting Texas.
MATTHEWS: Do you think there were meetings involving Nancy
Pelosi or anyone else in the House leadership or these guys you mentioned
who lost their seats and put together this charge against you; they cooked
it up?
DELAY: Yes, I think so, but I...
MATTHEWS: It wasn't just his eager beaver prosecutors helping Ronnie Earle? It was people from outside who involved themselves in this?
DELAY: I think so. yes.
MATTHEWS: Is Ronnie Earle a straight prosecutor?
DELAY: Absolutely not. He doesn't even go to his office. He only goes to his office to hold press conferences.
MATTHEWS: What, is he a no-show?
DELAY: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Is that legal, to be a no-show in Texas?
DELAY: I guess it is. He does it. He's done it almost his
entire
career.
MATTHEWS: Well, how does he get reelected?
DELAY: He's a political animal.
MATTHEWS: So, he's good at the electoral process, but not
the process
of prosecuting?
DELAY: Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: And you believe that this is a political vendetta?
DELAY: Oh, I know it is.
MATTHEWS: A coordinated vendetta by the House Democratic leadership here in Washington?
DELAY: And Democrat leadership in Texas and Ronnie Earle and, absolutely.
MATTHEWS: Do you believe that there was a heads-up to people like Nancy Pelosi before this thing today?
DELAY: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Do you believe that Nancy Pelosi and all the Democrats are keeping quiet today in order to let the focus be completely on you?
DELAY: And you're probably one of them. The DCCC yesterday afternoon was shopping this story. Nobody had this story.
MATTHEWS: But we didn't know about it. We didn't know about it.
DELAY: And they were shopping this story. So, they knew about it.
MATTHEWS: Well, they skipped us.
DELAY: Well...
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you this about this. Do you believe that Nancy Pelosi is part of a coordinated attempt to fry you and then to step back and let the frying go on without any Democratic partisanship being evident? We had a guest on today, Sheila Jackson Lee. All of a sudden, she wasn't available. We're wondering what's going on here. Are they telling the people to pull back and make it look like it's nonpartisan?
DELAY: I don't know about that.
MATTHEWS: Well, that would be very coordinated.
DELAY: Yes. But...
MATTHEWS: But you stick to your argument here tonight that this is a coordinated attack by the national Democrats and the state Democrats, including the guys you beat, knocked out of their seats, to get even with Tom DeLay?
DELAY: Absolutely. It's on their Web site.
MATTHEWS: Can you still be the Hammer without the gavel?
DELAY: Huh?
MATTHEWS: Can you still be the Hammer without the gavel?
DELAY: I'm still a member of the House and I'm still aggressive. And we have got a great agenda. We're looking for to fix gas prices. We're looking retirement security, fiscal responsibility, all these kinds of things.
We're focused.
And, in fact, what the Democrats don't understand is, what they have
done today is so unified the Republicans, at a time when we were kind of
falling apart and fighting with each other, that we are now so focused on
our
agenda, we're going to drive it home and defeat the Democrats by
accomplishing
our agenda.
MATTHEWS: There will be no Republicans out there trimming
you tonight, you don't think? They won't be saying off camera or off
record, without their names being used, this guy ought to go? You're not
going to read that tomorrow morning in the paper?
DELAY: I don't know. I don't know. I know what I saw in
that room when that caucus, the incredible support that I got.
MATTHEWS: Is Roy Blunt a good guy?
DELAY: And the unification of the other Republicans. Roy Blunt is a great guy. He's very capable.
MATTHEWS: Is he a DeLay guy?
DELAY: He is a Roy Blunt guy.
MATTHEWS: Hey, thank you. You have got a lot of nerve coming on.
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