TOM DELAY, one of the most powerful politicians in the US and a crucial White House ally, was forced to resign as the Republican leader in the House of Representatives last night after being charged with criminal conspiracy.

Mr DeLay, a conservative Texan largely responsible for winning passage of President Bush’s domestic legislative programme, was indicted by a Texas grand jury investigating a political fundraising scheme.

The criminal indictment, the culmination of a two-year investigation, deals a serious blow to Mr Bush as he scrambles to regain public confidence after his poor response to Hurricane Katrina.

It comes after a recent string of sleaze allegations made against senior Republicans, and will allow Democrats to renew accusations that after a decade controlling Capitol Hill, Republicans have become corrupted by power.

Mr DeLay, who last year was admonished three times by the House Ethics Committee over unrelated violations, has been fending off allegations of sleaze for months. His indictment threatens not only his own political future, but also the Republicans’ confident grip over Capitol Hill.

A former cockroach exterminator, Mr DeLay, a bare-knuckled scourge of Democrats, embodies more than anyone the marriage of big money and religious conservatism that swept to power in Congress in the Newt Gingrich revolution of 1994.

With his formidable fundraising skills and hardball tactics, Mr DeLay, 58, has built a powerful political machine that spreads from Washington to Texas, and has forced the agenda of religious conservatives to centre stage, a development that has transformed US politics. A party whip for eight years, and Majority leader for three, Mr DeLay has been ruthless in his pursuit of his political and ideological goals.

The Texas grand jury’s indictment stems from a plan Mr DeLay helped to set in motion in 2001, to help Republicans to win control of the Texas House of Representatives in the 2002 elections.

Texas law prohibits corporate money being used to fund political campaigning. It is allowed to pay only for administrative costs. This month a state political action committee Mr DeLay created, Texans for a Republican Majority, was indicted for accepting corporate contributions for use in political races.

Mr DeLay was indicted yesterday, with two political associates, for conspiracy in the campaign finance scheme. Under Republican rules in the House of Representatives, Mr DeLay had to step down temporarily until the criminal case has run its course. That could take at least a year.

Criminal conspiracy is punishable by up to two years in a state prison and a fine of up to $10,000 (£5,600). Mr DeLay and his allies have always claimed that the Texan investigation was a political witch-hunt, orchestrated by Ronnie Earle, an ambitious Democratic state attorney-general in charge of the investigation.

In true DeLay style — the House Majority Leader’s nickname is “the Hammer” — his lawyer, Bill White, said of the indictment: “It’s a skunky indictment. It’s like a skunk in the middle of the road. It stinks.”

Mr DeLay came out swinging, branding Mr Earle an “unabashed partisan zealot”, and his case a “sham, one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history”.

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