You will not see Republicans defending him because most of them are glad that he is gone. It appears that the Religious Right is also running from him and they were his last hope of keeping his empire alive.

If you did not vote his way he would 'primary' you out of a job. If that failed he would work to get your district redrawn so you would have to move in order to live in your district. If all else failed he would just stuff you with cash under the theory that everybody has their price.

When he found he could make more money as a convention speaker he quit the House. This left his district without a Rep for 7 months. Under Texas law there is a window before an election where the Gov cannot appoint someone to fill out an un-expired term and he quit three days after the deadline had passed.

He then appointed someone to run in his place. This is a Felony under Texas law since the way you get on the ballot there is spelled out and being appointed by someone is not among the legal ways to do it. No one was tried in that instance since there were so many Republicans involved in the crime the Fort Bend County DA could not figure out just who to charge. It was a classic DeLay move: Make is so complicated that no one can figure it out. In that case it worked because no one could.

After he quit his wife was crying about how donations to her charity had dropped off to almost nothing. Under Texas law you cannot just take wads of cash from a donor but if someone wants to give millions to your 'foundation', well, there is nothing wrong with that (wink, wink)!

One of the things a Judge considers before passing sentence is if the criminal is a continuing threat to society. If he gets twenty years it looks like the answer to that would be 'Yes'.