In perhaps the most wideranging article on the indictments of Tom DeLay to date, The Washington Post's R. Jeffrey Smith lays out exactly how we got to the current situation.

Lawyers for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) tried unsuccessfully in late September to head off felony criminal indictments against the then-majority leader on charges of violating Texas campaign law by signaling that DeLay might plead guilty to a misdemeanor, according to four sources familiar with the events.

The lawyers' principal aim was to try to preserve DeLay's leadership position under House Republican rules that bar lawmakers accused of felonies from holding such posts. DeLay was forced to step down as leader on Sept. 28 after the first of two grand jury indictments.

The last-minute negotiations between the lawyers and Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle were arranged after DeLay made what Earle considered a seriously damaging admission about his fundraising activities during an Aug. 17 meeting with the prosecutor in Austin.

At that session, DeLay acknowledged that in 2002 he was informed about and expressed his support for transfers of $190,000 in mostly corporate funds from his Texas political action committee to an arm of the Republican National Committee in Washington and then back to Texas, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be named.

Those transfers are at the heart of the prosecutor's investigation of the alleged use of corporate funds in the 2002 Texas elections, in violation of state law. In the prosecutor's view, DeLay's admission put him in the middle of a conspiracy not only to violate that law but also to launder money.

As disclosed by sources involved with the case, the new details present a more complete picture of the sequence of events leading to the indictment of DeLay at the end of September. They reveal the unusual lengths to which DeLay and his lawyers were willing to go to avoid charges that would force him to leave his powerful post -- and how it was DeLay's own words that ultimately got him in trouble with the prosecutor.

Smith reports that although DeLay was ready to plea in the case, Earle's offer of a minimum of three to four months in jail was simply too much to swallow. By the time it became apparent that Earle was ready to indict on felony charges, a moved that forced DeLay's resignation as House Majority Leader, the Texas Congressman decided he had little to gain by further cooperation, and instead turned to the media to hammer away at the DA. Interestingly, Smith writes,

Over the weekend of Oct. 1 and 2, Earle asked his staff to collect transcripts of everything DeLay had said publicly. Armed on Monday morning, Oct. 3, with what he considered these fresh admissions by DeLay of his knowledge of the deal, Earle persuaded a new grand jury at its first meeting to return two new indictments for money laundering and conspiracy.

Perhaps DeLay's decision to take Earle head on was not the best legal strategy possible, after all.