Word: took
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...counts at the moment, a politician who has thrived despite taking career-killing risks. In 1989 DeLay managed the campaign of Edward Madigan for the job of House Republican whip against an upstart rival named Newt Gingrich. Gingrich won by just two votes. Five years later, after the Republicans took over Congress, DeLay brazenly challenged and easily defeated Gingrich's handpicked candidate and best friend, Bob Walker, for the position he now holds. DeLay defended the Speaker during Gingrich's ethics investigation and helped him narrowly win re-election to his post in January 1997. But just six months later...
...praise from fellow conservatives and moderates alike. DeLay's honesty was especially compelling when compared to the denials offered by other conspirators. "Whether you were on his side or not, you had to respect his courage," says Florida's Foley. "It was meant to be public humiliation, but he took it like a man, and his stature grew every day thereafter...
Last week the jury did a more deliberate version of the same thing, and it was Smaltz who got zapped. After an exhausting seven-week, 70-witness trial, the jury took just nine hours to short-circuit his case against Espy, rejecting all 30 remaining counts of a kitchen-sink indictment. The verdict was not just a repudiation of Smaltz's four-year investigation into gifts Espy received from people his department regulates. It could also be read as a repudiation of the very statute that made Smaltz's wild prosecutorial ride possible. And when that independent-counsel statute comes...
...Agriculture Secretary, illegally accepted gifts--luggage, sports tickets, entertainment--from people and agribusinesses he regulated. Smaltz was almost immediately criticized for his freewheeling tactics. His team asked former friends and employees of chicken king Don Tyson whether they knew of any hookers or homosexual activity at events that took place long before Espy held office. Smaltz subpoenaed the names of 2,000 Tyson workers who had filed worker's compensation claims against the company on the theory that they might be more willing to expose its underside. He ordered up Sun-Diamond Growers lobbyist Richard Douglas' phone records dating back...
...indictment itself showed a prosecutor pushing the envelope. Smaltz said Espy illegally took $35,000 in gifts--but Smaltz valued at $6,000 four tickets to an inaugural ball that Espy could have had free, and he chalked up against Espy $3,200 given to Espy's girlfriend for a plane ticket. Smaltz even hit Espy with criminal charges for mailing reimbursement for some gifts he acknowledged he shouldn't have accepted...