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Here's the DeLay indictment (.pdf linked). Charge is criminal conspiracy. "As the 2002 elections approached, DeLay and his colleagues formulated a strategy about how to do something in Texas that would benefit him in Washington," the WaPo's Jeff Smith is explaining on NPR's Talk of the Nation now. Texans for a Republican majority raised corporate money that was only allowed to be used for administrative expenses. To get around that, they send this corporate money to Washington, to an arm of the RNC. The RNC in turn sent the money back to candidates in Texas. Two of the fundraisers in Texas have already been accused of moneylaundering, of essentially evading Texas law..."There is no dispute that the money was collected in Texas, sent to Washington, and returned to Texas. There is no question about that. They have good evidence on that. The question is, who knew?"
The Austin American-Statesman reports that the DeLay indictment focuses on one transaction in particular:
...In recent days, the broad-based investigation has focused on one particular transaction during the 2002 campaign.
In late September 2002, Colyandro, the executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, sent a blank check to Ellis, who is DeLay's primary fundraiser in Washington.
According to the money-laundering indictment returned against those two last year, Ellis was accused of having the Republican National Committee launder $190,000 of corporate donations into noncorporate money that was sent to to seven Texas House candidates, including Austinites Jack Stick and Todd Baxter.
Update: And this from the LA Times, about the potential implications of the DeLay indictment for the White House:
...Although the White House of fellow Texas Republican George Bush has publicly kept its distance from DeLay for some time, he is closely tied to many of the same conservative constituents — focused on both economic, cultural, and national security issues — that form the foundation of Bush's dwindling support.
Thus, even as Bush tries to recover from the political setbacks of the struggle in Iraq and the criticism of his administration's initial response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, he is facing a third political storm front. It challenges the ethics of his political foundation just as investigators have focused on a top Republican lobbyist in Washington in a separate case...