September 28, 2005—Last year, Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) helped lead the successful effort to remove the 1993 adopted House rule that requires a member of leadership to step-aside from his/ her post upon indictment.  Franks believed the rule contradicted the “innocent until proven guilty” standard by which the rest of America abides and provided a perverse incentive for any unscrupulous, Democratic prosecutor to take aim at the GOP leadership.  The change was later withdrawn by Tom DeLay himself to protect his fellow GOP members from criticism in the press.  This, unfortunately, left the GOP vulnerable to baseless attacks by those who would viciously abuse the indictment process.  Franks believes this has in fact happened in this situation and made the following statement:

“Ronnie Earle is a leftist partisan operative with no regard for justice and even less for the truth and is well known for his outrageous and vicious abuse of the indictment process.  In the end, I am absolutely convinced that Tom DeLay will be completely exonerated of these false accusations and Ronnie Earle will be exposed to the world as the pitiful excuse for a prosecutor he has proven himself to be.”

This is the sixth grand jury that Ronnie Earle has called against Majority Leader Tom DeLay.  The first five grand juries issued no indictment.
 

Trent Franks is the Congressman from the 2nd Congressional District of Arizona.  He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and Vice Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee.