When it rains, it pours. Barely a day went by this week in which House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was not skewered on the front page of a major newspaper for taking questionable -- if not down righ unethical -- gifts from lobbyists. This weekend provides no respite as James V. Grimaldi and R. Jeffrey Smith offer an A1 expose on the Houston Republican in Saturday's Washington Post.

An Indian tribe and a gambling services company made donations to a Washington public policy group that covered most of the cost of a $70,000 trip to Britain by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), his wife, two aides and two lobbyists in mid-2000, two months before DeLay helped kill legislation opposed by the tribe and the company.

The sponsor of the week-long trip listed in DeLay's financial disclosures was the nonprofit National Center for Public Policy Research, but a person involved in arranging DeLay's travel said that lobbyist Jack Abramoff suggested the trip and then arranged for checks to be sent by two of his clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and eLottery Inc.

The dates on the checks coincided with the day DeLay left on the trip, May 25, 2000, according to grants documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The Choctaw and eLottery each sent a check for $25,000, according to the documents. They now say that they were unaware the money was being used to finance DeLay's travels.

While this case is significantly less egregious than other such claims against DeLay, given the political climate and the Majority Leader's seeming propensity to make full use of lobbyist donations (perhaps unethically), this doesn't look too good for the GOP. As these allegations pile up, it will become increasingly difficult for the entire Republican Party from separating from it's embattled leader, and the resulting backlash could lead to a Democratic Congress before the decade is out.