Tom DeLay’s former chief-of-staff, Tony C. Rudy, pleased guilty to conspiracy charges related to Jack Abramoff. This gets corruption charges one step closer to DeLay himself.

Rudy took money, favors, gifts, sports tickets and trips to influence legislation. Since only the actual congressman can vote on that legislation, the influence peddling automatically extends to DeLay.

DeLay’s former press secretary, Michael Scanlon, pled guilty recently to committing illegal acts while working for delay and Abramoff, himself pled guilty.

Last week, the Senate rejected the creation of an office that would investigate these ethics violations against its own members.

Rudy agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department, which is looking into illegal activity by a number of Republicans in relation to Abramoff’s activities.