The Texas Department of Public Safety is not helping its reputation with this latest news of document and records destruction. The DPS has apparently destroyed all of its records
of its actions in trying to hunt down Democratic lawmakers who broke the Texas House quorum last week by absconding to Ardmore, Okla.

This is an incredible story. The DPS would seem to have ripped a page straight out of the Enron/Arthur Andersen playbook here. The only question is whether the agency did it on its own, as is being claimed, or were there behind-the-scenes political machinations involved? I suspect the latter and I want to know whether Tom Delay or Tom Craddick’s fingerprints are on this mess. I don’t like the fact that are state funded law enforcement agency was turned into a politcal tool by the Texas Republican Party last week and it outrageous that someone thinks they can just sweep it all away by pulling off some cheap Nixonian coverup operation now.

Josh Marshall has a good column this week in The Hill about Tom Delay’s involvement in trying to sic federal agents on the Killer D’s who screwed up his political powerplay last week.