He said there was nothing wrong with either of the two trips. One involved going to South Korea in 2001, a trip bankrolled by the Korea-US Exchange Council.
The other trip was to Britain in 2000. The Washington Post reported Saturday that the cost of that trip was picked up mostly by an Indian tribe and a gambling services company.
In unusually direct terms, DeLay criticized the Post story, accusing the paper of a ''zeal to leave readers with a false impression that I did something that I did not do."
DeLay's comments were the latest development in an increasingly complicated political and legal drama.
The combative Texan was twice admonished last year by the ethics panel.
DeLay reacted furiously at the time, insisting he had not been found guilty of violating either a law or the House rules, and House Republicans rewrote the Ethics Committee rules this fall to require at least one member of each party to agree before any investigations could be undertaken in the future.
Democrats said that was an attempt to shelter DeLay, and noted that two of the GOP members are also contributors to the majority leader's legal defense fund. Democrats unhappy with the new GOP-driven rules of operation for the committee also have blocked it from formally organizing for the new Congress.
Officials said DeLay's letter to Representatives Doc Hastings, Republican of Washington, the Ethics Committee chairman, and Alan B. Mollohan of West Virginia, the senior Democrat, laid out a defense of the majority leader's travels.
In the 2001 journey to Korea, DeLay's travel costs were picked up by a registered foreign agent despite rules prohibiting the practice, government documents show. He, as well as other lawmakers who took similar trips, said he didn't know the Korea-United States Exchange Council had registered as an agent of the South Korean government.
In all, at least eight House members and 15 House aides accepted trips to South Korea paid for by the organization.
Lawmakers who took the trips said either that the travel was approved in advance by the House Ethics Committee, formally known as the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, or that they relied on information provided by the council.
The council took the blame for any problems. Last week, it said it assured the lawmakers that the trips met with the approval of the Ethics Committee.
The Post reported that the trip to England was mostly paid for with money from an Indian tribe and a gambling services company. The paper said DeLay later helped kill legislation opposed by the company and tribe.
