Tom DeLay

Thomas Dale "Tom" DeLay ( born April 8, 1947 in Laredo, Texas ) is an American politician of the Republican Party.

Tom DeLay spent part of his childhood in Venezuela, where his father worked in the oil and gas production. At the University of Houston from 1970 he put an exam in biology, after he had been expelled from Baylor University because of drunkenness. During his time as a deputy in the Texas House of Representatives from 1978 to 1985, he championed the fight against alcoholism.

DeLay is considered very conservative, right Republicans. In 1984 he was selected for the 22 electoral district of Texas in the House of Representatives of the United States. He was in 1994 elected by his party colleagues to Majority Whip his group. Because of his commitment to the party discipline he received it the nickname " The Hammer". After eight years in 2002 he was the majority leader. In foreign policy, he is known as a strong supporter of Israel. In his view, only the Republican Party is in contrast to the Democrats loyal to Israel. In 2003 he visited Israel and met members of the Israeli Paralaments. He rejects any compromise with respect to the return of occupied territories to the Palestinians, so that the right-wing politicians Arieh Eldad said he always thought he was the computational tests in parliament until he heard DeLay's speech. The former Mossad chief Danny Yatom said: " The Likud is nothing compared to this guy "

In 2005 he was one of the forces that brought the Bush administration to reject the support of the Palestinian Authority. Some Jewish leaders expressed their concern about the way how the " Texas Republican evangelicals the American and Israeli efforts to find a two-state solution to run. "

On 28 September 2005 DeLay was accused by the prosecution of Travis County, to have misused donations in the amount of $ 190,000 for election campaigns of Republican candidates in Texas. He then submitted the post of majority leader temporarily down, but kept his seat. Other allegations have been made in October 2005. According to a statement by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff and key witnesses who also charged DeLay, he put on 7 January 2006 from his position as leader of the Republicans down permanently. Succeeded in this office was John Boehner. DeLay denied continue to have behaved ethically incorrect and initially wanted to run again for the House of Representatives. On April 3, 2006 DeLay was then known not to stand for re-election in November 2006.

2009 started the right wing of the Republicans to make the debate about the birth certificate of Barack Obama in the media popular. Here it was assumed that Obama was not born in the U.S. and according to the constitution, therefore, not be president should have been. On August 19, DeLay said in the show " Hardball " Obama should show his birth certificate.

On 24 November 2010, a court in Austin talked him after 19 hours jury consulting for conspiracy and money laundering guilty. On 10 January 2011 he was sentenced to three years in prison for conspiracy by a judge. Because of money laundering, he was sentenced to ten years probation. He announced vocation and will remain until the trial, thanks payment of a deposit of U.S. $ 10,000 at large.

In addition to Jack Abramoff and DeLay's lobbying activities are worked up in the documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money by 2010.