http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1054596,00.html
Quote:
Gifts in High Places
Did DeLay staffers violate ethics rules?
By KAREN TUMULTY
Tuesday, Apr. 26, 2005
Lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave expensive gifts to key members of then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay's staff, which the aides accepted in apparent violation of House ethics rules, according to two sources who worked at Abramoff's law firm at the time Abramoff made the gifts. The gifts included high-end golf equipment, tickets to sporting events and concerts and, in the case of one high-ranking DeLay staff member, a weekend getaway paid for by Abramoff's own frequent flyer and hotel points, two sources who had direct knowledge of the transactions tell TIME.
The two sources say that one recipient of the gifts, including the weekend trip and expensive golf clubs, was Tony C. Rudy, who worked for DeLay for five years and served at various times as DeLay's press secretary, policy director, general counsel and deputy chief of staff when DeLay was House Majority Whip. When Rudy left DeLay's office in 2000, he joined Abramoff at the law firm Greenberg Traurig. Since 2002, Rudy has worked at Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm headed by former DeLay Chief of Staff Ed Buckham.
A spokesman for Abramoff said he is unavailable for comment. Rudy has not returned repeated calls requesting comment.
DeLay's current chief of staff, Tim Berry, told TIME that he recalls Abramoff giving him a golf club while they were playing golf in the late 1990s, or possibly as late as 2000, when Berry was a floor assistant to DeLay. Berry said he found the situation awkward, and "got rid of it" a few days later, and added that in the current environment, he now wishes he had simply given back the gift to Abramoff. Berry could not recall the make of the club, which he believes was a wood, and said he does not know whether its value would have exceeded the gift limit under the House rules.
Rudy was one of two staff members who joined DeLay on a trip to Scotland and England in 2000?-a trip in which the airfare was paid for by Abramoff's credit card, the Washington Post revealed earlier this week. House rules prohibit lobbyists from paying for the travel of members and their staffs, even if they are subsequently reimbursed by others. DeLay's office maintains that he believed and continues to believe that the trip was sponsored and paid for by a non-profit public policy institute, the National Center for Public Policy Research, which would have been allowable under House rules. At the time, Abramoff served on the NCPPR board.
Under House ethics rules, no member or employee of the House may accept a gift valued at more than $50, or a series of gifts worth more than $100 over the course of a year. The rules stipulate that gifts covered under the limit include "services, training, transportation, lodging and meals, whether provided in kind, by purchase of a ticket, payment in advance or reimbursement after the expense has been incurred." Republicans tightened the rules considerably after they took control of the House in 1995, having been elected in part on their promise to clean up the chamber's ethical standards. The previous rule allowed members and their staff to accept gifts from a single source up to a cumulative value of $250 over the course of a year.
The revelation comes at a time when the House ethics committee, which would normally be the body that would investigate such matters, has ceased to function. Democrats on the committee object to rules changes that they say were designed to protect DeLay by making it more difficult to launch an investigation. The new rules would require a majority vote?-which means support from at least one Republican on the panel?-for the committee to begin a probe. But now, House Republican leaders, realizing that the rule change has been a political disaster for them, are scrambling to find a way to repeal it.
Rudy's biography on the firm's website boasts that he was once ranked on one of Capitol Hill's top 50 staff members by Roll Call newspaper. "As Deputy Chief of Staff to the House Majority Whip, Tony had extraordinary access and influence in the legislative process," his biography claims. "He ran DeLay's well-known member services operation that enabled Tony to develop personal relationships with dozens of House members including current members of the House Leadership, Committee Chairman (sic) and members of key committees including the Appropriations Committee, Commerce Committee, the Ways and Means Committee and the Financial Services Committee. Tony also has extensive contacts with hundreds of key staff members in Congress."
Man, it's like every day some new misconduct allegation comes out.
Cycloptichorn
I am sure there are more than a few congress people from both parties who are on the take. When all is said and done we do have the best congress that money can buy.
au1929, are you saying we as ordinary citizens who elect these people in should shrug our shoulders when people violate rules because others violate rules? Why have rules to begin with?
revel
Not at all. We should be rooting out all these corrupt SOB's and transfer them from congress to jail.
What I was saying as it stands now congress is for sale to the highest bidder.
au1929 wrote:revel
...We should be rooting out all these corrupt SOB's and transfer them from congress to jail.
...
yup. one a them fancy new "super-max" jails.
au1929 wrote:revel
Not at all. We should be rooting out all these corrupt SOB's and transfer them from congress to jail.
What I was saying as it stands now congress is for sale to the highest bidder.
I agree with you. But it seems a pretty well hopeless battle to go up against so much money and power. It would take a real movement and organization and people realizing that it is not about the parties or issues.
And if some on the democrats side are on the take it we should go after them as much as the republicans who happen to be the majority right now.
However, sometimes you can only focus on one person or issue as they come up and right now it is about Delay. If he is guilty of wrong doing then he should pay the price.
Delay is a "YES" man.
Quite sincerely, I'm becoming afraid of the right. And, I'm a Christian! I'm afraid of what's coming to us in the way of policy, and it is becoming more and more apparent that there is a definite smokescreen here. What to most evangelicals seems like "Christian ideology," I'm beginning to suspect more everyday that it is a wall of mirrors for a very aggressive foreign policy to hide behind. By stacking federal courts with your people and having the wherewithal in Congress to do it, you essentially aleviate yourself from having to be held accountable for your deeds (misdeeds) and in the case of the Bush/Cheney administration, very little has been done in the name of true Christian principles. But Karl Rove knows that. He knows that all you have to do is talk the talk with Christians, and that most of us are just sheep, who blindly follow whoever or whatever we're told.
House Votes to Reverse GOP Ethics Rules By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 25 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The House, with grudging Republican support, voted Wednesday to reverse GOP ethics rules that Democrats charged were designed to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
The Republicans heeded Speaker Dennis Hastert's call for a retreat to end a deadlock that has kept the evenly divided ethics panel from functioning. The vote was 406-20, with all votes against the resolution cast by Republicans.
An early job for the committee may be an inquiry into whether a lobbyist financed DeLay's foreign trips in violation of House rules. The majority leader has asked to appear before the panel to clear his name, and told reporters Wednesday he was pulling together travel records going back a decade.
In debate, Democrats continued to attack DeLay's conduct. Republicans countered that they didn't make a mistake but accepted political reality: In a committee with five members of each party, Democrats would not supply any votes to let the committee operate without a reversal of the rules.
"We were absolutely right," insisted Rep. David Dreier (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif.
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. countered, "When they thought no one was looking, they passed a package that effectively neutered the committee ... to protect one man from investigation."
The committee's chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings (news, bio, voting record), R-Wash., said, "The Democrats remain absolutely unwilling to compromise. It is severely damaging to this institution for the other side of the aisle to keep the doors locked on the ethics committee."
Senior committee Democrat Alan Mollohan of West Virginia argued that the Republican rules would have seriously damaged the committee's ability to conduct investigations.
"What is at issue is ... whether the House is going to continue to have a credible ethics process. Nothing less than this is at stake here tonight."
Hastings tried to assure the House that there would be no partisanship in any decision to investigate DeLay or any other member.
"No investigation has ever been taken by the committee without bipartisan support," said Hastings, who last week offered to investigate DeLay in a futile effort to break the deadlock.
The Republican lawmakers had endured weeks of intense Democratic criticism ?- and hometown editorials ?- complaining that the GOP rule changes were an attempt to protect DeLay from further investigation.
DeLay, R-Texas, was admonished by the committee on three matters last year.
Republicans leaving their weekly meeting in the Capitol basement Wednesday morning generally praised Hastert for pivoting on the issue. DeLay seemed annoyed at the crowd of reporters.
"You guys better get out of my way," he said. "Where's our security?"
Several hours later, DeLay seemed to be in a jovial mood at his weekly news conference, where he pledged to support the reversal and said he was pulling together 10 years of travel records for a voluntary submission to the ethics committee.
He denied playing any role in the partisan rules changes that passed the House in January or in the reversal Wednesday.
"This has been the speaker's project all along," he said.
The rules in effect before January allowed investigations to begin if the ethics chairman and ranking minority member failed to act on a complaint in 45 days and no other member requested full committee consideration. The Republican changes provided for an automatic dismissal in case of a tie, a procedure that Hastert said was needed to avoid keeping members in limbo.
In a letter to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Hastert wrote that the changes pushed through in January were an attempt to correct inequities.
Given Democratic opposition, he proposed reverting to the old rules, "leaving the unfairness inherent in the old system in place."
At the same time, he said he hoped the ethics committee could recommend changes for the future.
Rep. Joel Hefley (news, bio, voting record), R-Colo., who supported the Republican retreat, said the GOP move "doesn't mean Democrats will stop going after DeLay."
Hefley was dumped by Hastert as chairman of the evenly divided committee after the panel admonished DeLay. He has been one of the few Republicans who opposed the rule changes from the beginning.
Republican lawmakers, who would not be identified by name because their meeting was closed, said some GOP congressmen didn't want to stop the fight, believing the party could still win the political battle.
Lawmakers said Rep. John Boehner (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, backed Hastert in the meeting and noted that a functioning ethics committee wouldn't only open the door for an investigation of DeLay. It would also permit further action on an ethics complaint filed last year against Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott (news, bio, voting record) of Washington.
McDermott is accused of violating House rules by leaking to reporters a taped telephone conversation.
Rep. Alan Mollohan (news, bio, voting record) of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the committee, said, "To this point the speaker's actions have been positive. The proposal will be considered and evaluated by the bipartisan yardstick."
At the same time, Mollohan and aides to Pelosi insisted that committee staff must be hired on a bipartisan basis. Republicans early this year unilaterally fired two holdover staff members.
Pelosi said the Republican reversal was "a victory for the American people. Americans understood what was at stake ?- the integrity of the House ?- and in one voice demanded that the House return to a credible, viable and nonpartisan ethics process."
Hastert bristled at talk of Democrats dictating committee staffing. "If they get one thing, they'll want another," he said in a brief interview.
___
AP Special Correspondent David Espo contributed to this report.
Yes, force him to resign. Not that it would hurt him financially, of course...
Like au or someone said not long ago, he won't go on his own. This will have to be played out all the way. Now at least it can go before the ethics committee.
As for Hastert's comments, hehe.
An interesting thing about the ethics committee.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-04-26-delay-donations-ethics_x.htm
Donations link DeLay, ethics panel
By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON ?- All five Republicans on the House ethics committee have financial links to Tom DeLay that could raise conflict-of-interest issues should the panel investigate the GOP majority leader.
Public records show DeLay's leadership political action committee (PAC) gave $15,000 to the campaign of Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Pa. ?- $10,000 in 2000 and $5,000 in 2002. Hart would chair a panel to investigate DeLay if the committee moves forward with a probe.
The same political committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, also has donated to the campaigns of ethics Chairman Doc Hastings of Washington, Judy Biggert of Illinois and Tom Cole of Oklahoma. They are among scores of Republicans DeLay has contributed to. Cole and the remaining committee Republican, Lamar Smith of Texas, contributed to DeLay's legal defense fund. (Related link: Donations from Americans for Republican Majority)
Hart said there is no appearance problem. "That's just normal" for leaders to contribute to campaigns, she said.
There is precedent for ethics panel members recusing themselves when such conflict issues arise. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., stepped aside in 2002 in the case of then-senator Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., accused of financial misconduct. Reid had given $500 to Torricelli's legal defense fund. "Recusal is pretty much an individual choice, if there is any possibility of a conflict of interest," said Donald Ritchie, a Senate historian.
Kenneth Gross, an attorney who has represented Democrats and Republicans on ethics issues, said the financial ties on the committee could be a problem. "I would advise the committee not to use a member who had received contributions from DeLay's leadership PAC to head the investigation," he said.
The ethics committee has admonished DeLay five times since 1997, more than any current member of Congress. He has come under renewed scrutiny for taking foreign trips that may have been paid for by lobbyists or foreign agents, which is prohibited.
A DeLay investigation cannot be launched because the committee hasn't been able to solve a dispute over its rules. Rep. Alan Mollohan and other Democrats refuse to adopt the rules, saying they are designed to protect DeLay and would allow either party to protect members by refusing to act on complaints.
The panel is the only House committee with equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats: five each.
USA Today is evolving into a brave paper...nice to see.
Quote:Congressional fellow travelers
Cal Thomas
"I'm a travelin' man, I've made a lot of stops, all over the worldÂ…" ?- Ricky Nelson
It is no excuse to say "everybody does it" if what everybody is doing is unlawful. However, in the case of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who's been singled out by Democrats for criticism because of trips he's taken that were, in some cases, apparently paid for at least in part by lobbyists, the party that's pointing a finger at DeLay ought to look at all the fingers pointing back at Democrats.
A study by PoliticalMoneyLine (
www.politicalmoneyline.com ) has found that during the last five years, out of the $16 million in congressional travel paid for by private funds, more than half (almost $8.8 million) came from tax-exempt organizations which receive funds from others. One of the raps on DeLay is that some of his trips, including one to Russia in 1997, were reportedly underwritten by lobbyists, but through a non-profit organization. DeLay has said he had no knowledge of lobbyists funding such trips, which might have violated House ethics rules.
According to the study by PoliticalMoneyLine, many of the organizations paying for congressional travel are tax-exempt entities and are not required to disclose their donors to the public in the IRS Form 990 reports they must file.
The study found that during the five-year period surveyed, members of Congress took 5,410 trips (Democrats, 3,025 trips; Republicans, 2,375 trips; others, 10 trips.)
Altogether, 605 members of both houses took trips, with Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, receiving the most gifts of travel (19 trips valued at $167,960). By contrast, DeLay was 28th on the list with 14 trips valued at $94,568.
Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) can claim the prize for most trips (60), but Ford's less expensive domestic travel totaled just $61,000. Organizations spending the most for congressional travel, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, were the Aspen Institute ($2,897,602) and the Ripon Society ($694,042), both ideologically liberal organizations.
After Sensenbrenner, the next four members receiving the most gifts of travel were Democrats: Rep. Gene Green of Texas, (former) Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida and Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York. No Democrat has raised questions about any of these because their target is DeLay, probably the most effective Majority Leader since the days when Democrats used to rule. DeLay resists and often thwarts the Democrats' agenda. Since he continues to win re-election, Democrats are trying to take him down using their scandal machine.
There's plenty more in the PoliticalMoneyLine report that bears investigation if Democrats are serious about "exposing" ethically questionable travel. More than 127 travel reports filed by members listed no destinations. Twenty reports listed no trip sponsor. One hundred and six reports listed no cost figures, Fifty-one reports showed no purpose for the travel. Four reports failed to show any travel dates. No wonder some members, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have rushed to file amended reports. An aide to Pelosi acknowledged not reporting a 2004 trip to South Korea, but only after a Washington Post reporter inquired about it. The aide, said the Post, filed a full disclosure form "a few hours after the newspapers' inquiry" and sent a note to the ethics committee which said, "I did not know I was supposed to file these forms and I apologize for its lateness."
The Washington Post reported Wednesday (4/27) that House Republicans have decided to rescind a rules change they pushed through in January that led to the shutdown of the ethics committee, possibly clearing the way for consideration of charges against DeLay and others. The House Ethics Committee has not been operating because Democrats would not allow it to meet following the rules change that required an ethics complaint be dismissed if the evenly-divided panel deadlocked. We'll now see if Democrats are as enthusiastic about maintaining an ethical standard when some of their own are questioned along with Tom DeLay.
timber fearlessly steps out on a limb here: The DeLay fray will work out to much less inconvenience for DeLay and the Republicans, and much greater inconvenience for The Democrats, than The Democrats wish.
I suspect, Timber, that this is why, when the Republicans agreed to revert to the original rules for the Ethics Committee, Nancy Peolosi took to the House Floor (or it may have been a news conference right after the House adjourned) to object to returning to the original rules rather than adopt new rules. She wanted the focus to be on Delay alone and for rules to forbid dragging any others into it. The 'original rules' allow the committee to look at Delay's sins in comparison to all other charges of impropriety being leveled and the Democrats have hugely dirty hands on many of those issues.
Hard to believe Delay has many defenders, but I guess I should've known better.
Plenty of Dems have gotten in trouble for ethical lapses: Jim Wright and Dan Rostenkowski come to mind. Why not grin and bear it instead of trying to defend the indefensible?
If it means catching a lot of rotten fish to get to the smellist rotten fish, so be it.
The repubs back down because they knew it made them look bad period.
DeLay is, of course, on the carpet for more than the trips. And he is unique in having been censured three times previously by a bipartisan committee. And the rules change the Republicans pushed through was inexcuseable. As was the replacement of personnel simply because they acted in accord with their consciences rather than in accord with party wishes.
The Republicans have had to back down on this matter and backing down isn't something this crowd is comfortable doing. Apparently, they believe that such makes one appear a loser, and once one appears a loser, then the injuries will grow. That's happening with Social Security too. And it is increasingly probable that they won't get Bolton through. Party division is increasing likely due to lame duck phenomenon but also to the increasing power push by the extremists, thus voices like Danforth in opposition.
And DeLay is an extremist...
"I blame Congress over the last fity to a hundred years for not standing up and taking its responsibilities given to it by the Constitution. The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowehere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them." Washington Times interview
Is is true that he said "fity," as in "fity cent," or is that a typo?
2 on Ethics Panel Withdraw From Any DeLay Inquiry
Quote:By CARL HULSE
Published: May 5, 2005
WASHINGTON, May 4 - Two Republican members of the House ethics committee who contributed to the legal defense fund of Representative Tom DeLay, the majority leader, recused themselves Wednesday from any potential investigation of him as the panel took the first steps that could lead to such an inquiry.
After a two-hour meeting, Representative Doc Hastings, the chairman, announced that the two representatives, Lamar Smith of Texas and Tom Cole of Oklahoma, would not take part in any action relating to Mr. DeLay. The two lawmakers each provided $5,000 last year to a fund being used to underwrite Mr. DeLay's legal expenses as he fought accusations of misconduct in Texas and Washington.
"All three of us agree that it's best to remove any doubt about this at the very start of the process," Mr. Hastings, a Washington Republican, said in a statement.
The decision represented an effort by Republicans to avert calls for an outside counsel to lead the House investigation into the powerful party leader and to restore credibility to its internal ethics process. That process has been rocked by accusations that Republicans had sought to weaken it through new rules and membership changes. Mr. Cole and Mr. Smith were added to the committee this year after the panel admonished Mr. DeLay three times last year.
link
revel wrote:The repubs back down because they knew it made them look bad period.
blatham wrote:The Republicans have had to back down on this matter and backing down isn't something this crowd is comfortable doing. Apparently, they believe that such makes one appear a loser, and once one appears a loser, then the injuries will grow.
If one reads various message boards and listens to Republican leaders, the Republicans have largely given up justifying anything on the merits and taken to just reciting their electoral gains of the past few years as giving themselves the right to do anything.
On another message board, a normally reasonable fellow who is Republican even started using electoral gains to justify the deficits in the budget!
They have had electoral gains, yes, but their presidential candidate lost the popular vote in 2000 and squaked by with a scant 2% plurality in 2004. Yet Republicans talk as if they have this huge popular mandate to do anything at all, that the field is now clear of any opposition to them on any issue.
