The Noose is Tightening...

...around DeLay's political neck. Or perhaps the more appropriate metaphor is the one about the walls closing in, only this case they may be the walls of a jail cell. From today's NY Times:

Documents subpoenaed from an indicted fund-raiser for Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, suggest that Mr. DeLay was more actively involved than previously known in gathering corporate donations for a political committee that is the focus of a grand-jury investigation in Texas, his home state.

The documents, which were entered into evidence last week in a related civil trial in Austin, the state capital, suggest that Mr. DeLay personally forwarded at least one large corporate check to the committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, and that he was in direct contact with lobbyists for some of the nation's largest companies on the committee's behalf.

As most of you probably know by this point, donations to political parties by corporations is illegal in Texas(it's one of the things Texas gets right about politics.) To this point DeLay has maintained that he was not personally involved in the solicitation or delivery of any funds intended to go to "Trmpac" as it's known, but documents indicating otherwise could put to lie his denials. If the documents are compelling enough, it's hard to see how DeLay could avoid some sort of criminal punishment for this. Such charges would spell the end of the political career of DeLay, which as gone on far too long as it is. Though a conviction of any kind against DeLay would be yet another embarassment for Texas politicians in general(although it's only the Republican ones Texans should be ashamed of) it would be more then worth it to take "The Hammer" out of action.