Globe sics McCoy on Blunt

Joplin Globe investigative reporter Max McCoy (pictured) explores new House Majority Leader Roy Blunt's connections with indicted former Majority Leader Tom DeLay in the lead story in the newspaper's Sunday edition.
The article also takes a careful examination of Blunt's Rely on Your Beliefs Fund. This is the first time the Globe has really taken an in-depth look at the Seventh District Congressman who has been making quite a name for himself the past few years as a tool for special interests and someone who has no qualms whatsoever about doing whatever his best for himself, his family, and his political donors before he does his job, which if you have forgotten, is to represent the people of the Seventh District.
About the only thing that McCoy's article doesn't explore (and there may be sidebars that do once the print edition comes out tomorrow morning) is the money Blunt poured into DeLay's defense fund. That was covered in the July 21 Turner Report, which said:

"Ethically-challenged House Republican Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has raised more than $1 million for his defense and $20,000 of that has come from Seventh District Congressman Roy Blunt, according to documents filed with House's Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.
"Blunt's total was far and away the most donated to DeLay by any of his colleagues, the reports indicated. The money provided by Blunt was all given last year, the reports said. Only two congressmen provided money to DeLay during 2005.
Other four-state officials who donated to the Texas congressman, all of them Republican U. S. representatives were: Tom Cole, Oklahoma, $1,000; Todd Tiahrt, Kansas, $10,000, Todd Akin, Missouri, $1,000; JoAnn Emerson, Missouri, $1,000; and Frank Lucas, Oklahoma, $1,000.
"The documents also indicate that one of the biggest corporate contributors to DeLay was Carthage-based Fortune 500 company Leggett & Platt, which gave him $5,000.
No Missouri individual, other than the aforementioned members of Congress, gave DeLay more than $500.
"The House Ethics Committee admonished DeLay for three violations in 2004, and many of his close associates are apparent targets in a grand jury investigation involving corporate money laundering."

That grand jury investigation, as we discovered last week, has led to DeLay's indictment.