TOM DeLAY, one of the most powerful Republican politicians in the US for more than a decade, was arrested, fingerprinted and photographed for police files yesterday, ready for his first court appearance today on charges of conspiracy and money laundering.

Mr DeLay, a key White House ally largely responsible for winning passage of President Bush’s domestic legislative programme, was forced to step down as the Republican Leader in the House of Representatives last month on being indicted for violating Texan electoral finance laws.

Although he fiercely denies any wrongdoing, he had to face the routine but humiliating procedure of being “booked”, an uncomfortable situation for a once powerful figure brought to earth by allegations of wrongdoing at a time when the White House itself is braced for possible criminal indictments.

Mr DeLay turned himself in at the Harris County sheriff’s office, near Houston, where he was released on $10,000 bail on the conspiracy and money-laundering charges.

Shortly before Mr DeLay posed for his police mug shot, Mr Bush appeared in the White House Rose Garden with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, and sought to focus on the prospects for peace in the Middle East.

Instead he was forced to defend his embattled Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, and respond to questions about mounting sleaze allegations against senior Republicans and White House figures under siege. Bill Frist, the Republican Senate leader, is also under investigation over possible insider trading.

Mr Bush dismissed the criminal investigations as “background noise, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation,” and sought to combat the image of a brooding and defensive White House and a President struggling to retain his influence in Washington and America at large.

Mr Bush and the White House are braced for possible charges after an investigation into whether Administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent to the press.

It emerged yesterday that Karl Rove, the President’s top adviser, gave evidence before the grand jury investigating the leak that he may have learnt of Valerie Plame, the agent in question, from Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief-of-staff to Dick Cheney, the Vice-President.

The revelation suggests that Mr Rove may be trying to distance himself from Mr Libby, a close friend, amid a growing belief that Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, is about to issue charges, possibly next week.

It has become clear in recent days that Mr Libby is a major figure in the investigation. Sources also disclosed that the accounts given by Mr Rove and Mr Libby to the grand jury contradicted accounts from several reporters involved in the case, heightening fears in the Oval Office that the two most powerful aides in the White House might face charges of perjury or obstruction of justice.

Meanwhile, President Bush’s choice of Ms Miers to fill the Supreme Court vacancy suffered another significant setback. He has faced a furious response from his conservative base over the appointment of his former personal lawyer in Texas, a loyalist who has never been a judge.

Conservatives had expected Mr Bush to appoint a judge with unambiguous conservative credentials.

Since the nomination, the White House has attempted to reassure conservatives by telling them that Ms Miers is an evangelical Christian opposed to Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark ruling that gave women a constitutional right to abortion.

Many conservatives, however, have found the overtures patronising and clumsy.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been alienated amid fears that Ms Miers has given backroom guarantees to vote against Roe.

Both sides have accused Ms Miers of being intellectually and judicially unqualified to sit on America’s highest court.

That impression was exacerbated yesterday when she faced the unprecedented humiliation of having her written responses to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a routine step before her confirmation hearing, rejected.

Her responses, according to the Republican and Democrat leaders of the committee, were “inadequate, insufficient and insulting”.

Mr Bush, facing growing calls from conservatives to withdraw Ms Miers’s nomination, insisted that she was a “strong, capable woman”. If he stands by her, one conservative commentator predicted yesterday that her confirmation hearing, expected to begin on November 7, will be a spectacle of “unspeakable ugliness”, with hostile questioning from Democrats and Republicans.

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