John Fund: Ronnie Earle's Circus continues

John Fund at Political Diary has more on Prosecutor Ronnie Earle's political prosecution of Tom Delay. Ronnie Earle's explanation for why he can't reveal how much money he has spent trying to go after Delay is pretty funny.

But as the case approaches a trial, it's looking increasingly shaky, as are Mr. Earle's latest explanations as to why he has to keep secret the amount of taxpayer money he has expended on it.

In an effort to block newspapers from getting that information, Mr. Earle filed a lawsuit this month arguing that his expenditures are exempt from Texas's open records law. "The requested records, if released, would reveal the mental impressions and legal reasoning of prosecutors regarding trial preparation and trial strategies in several pending criminal cases," Mr. Earle, a Democrat, says in the lawsuit. "Such premature revealing of often sensitive and sometimes life-threatening information could adversely effect public safety."

Legal analysts scoff at suggestions that merely releasing the amount of money Mr. Earle has spent in his Captain Ahab-like pursuit of Mr. DeLay would jeopardize anything other than Mr. Earle's diminishing reputation as an objective prosecutor.