This is truly unbelievable. Mike Allen and R. Jeffrey Smith report on the front page of tomorrow's Washington Post that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay may have taken another lobbyist-paid trip that potentially broke House ethics rules.

A delegation of Republican House members including Majority Leader Tom DeLay accepted an expense-paid trip to South Korea in 2001 from a registered foreign agent despite House rules that bar the acceptance of travel expenses from foreign agents, according to government documents and travel reports filed by the House members.

Justice Department documents show that the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, a business-financed entity created with help from a lobbying firm headed by DeLay's former chief of staff, registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on Aug. 22, 2001. DeLay; his wife, Christine; and two other Republican lawmakers departed on a trip financed by the group on Aug. 25 of that year.

[...]

The Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives on Gifts and Travel state that "a Member, officer or employee may not accept travel expenses from 'a registered lobbyist or agent of a foreign principal.' "

Jan W. Baran, a former general counsel for the Republican National Committee, said that although he was uncertain whether this trip violated the rules, "it's a problem" likely to trigger an investigation by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, known as the ethics committee. DeLay was admonished three times last year by the ethics committee.

DeLay's ethical problems are mounting across the world. He took a lobbyist-paid trip to play golf at St. Andrews in Scotland; he allegedly laundered campaign funds in Texas; now this. If Tom DeLay is indeed culpable but still isn't kicked out of the House a la Jim Wright, the American Democracy will be in serious jeopardy.

[Update 9:55 PM Pacific]: The New York Times' Philip Shenon and David D. Kirkpatrick have yet another development in this ongoing story in tomorrow's paper.

Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, said Wednesday that he was aware of how accounts for corporate donations had been set up at a political action committee that is under criminal investigation by a Texas grand jury and that the committee's lawyers closely monitored all fund-raising activities.

Mr. DeLay's comments, made at his weekly news conference on Capitol Hill, were his most detailed public remarks to date on his involvement in the creation and fund-raising activities of the committee, Texans for a Republican Majority.

Discussing the committee's origins, Mr. DeLay said, "Yes, it was my idea, or it was our idea - those of us that wanted to enhance the Republicans who served in the House of Representatives in the Texas Legislature."

Shocking, just shocking.