Now boarding, El Al nonstop flight to Israel. Please make sure your suitcases of money are properly secured in the Prime Minister’s house. William Jefferson eat your heart out. An investigation into corruption in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office led to a search of Olmert’s house where suitcases of money were found. The suitcases, containing hundreds of thousands in American dollars (I know what you’re thinking, American dollars, aren’t they worthless now), came from New York businessman Morris Talansky, referred to in coded transmissions as "the Laundry Man." Olmert denies any wrong doing, claiming that the money was for campaign purposes. Judah Grunstein at World Politics Review makes about the only observation one can:

I don’t know a whole lot about Israeli campaign finance laws, but I imagine that suitcases full of cash that go undeclared until a police raid on your home probably violate them.

Back here in the states, the Department of Justice opened a new investigation into the possible misuse of congressional staff by two offices. Reps. Jane Harman and Neil Abercrombie were accused of using congressional staff to do campaign work by a former staffer who recently plead guilty to fraud charges. It is a violation of House rules for congressional staff to do campaign work unless it is on their own time. This may also violate federal law statutes regarding the solicitation of political contributions from employees.

Both Harman and Abercrombie denied using staff for campaign work. It should also be noted that these violations rarely go anywhere. If anything, members get a slap on the wrist, which in congressional terms is a politely worded letter that stops short of admonishment. The House Ethics Committee should investigate this alleged misuse of campaign staff. They did recently when Rep. John Conyers was alleged to have forced a staffer to do campaign work and they should do so again. I’m not holding my breath though. (Sigh.)

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The hedge fund industry is courting U.S. Rep. Richard Baker (R-La.) to head their lobbying efforts, according to a report over the weekend from The Washington Post. Baker said he has not decided to take the position as president of the Managed Funds Association (MFA), but did admit that the nearly million-dollar-a-year job did "look very interesting." He informed the House Ethics Committee Friday of his talks with MFA as members of Congress are now required to do as a result of the lobbying law passed last year. Baker is the first member to meet this new requirement.

The Louisiana Republican is a longtime member of the Financial Services Committee, formerly known as the Banking Committee, and served eight years as chair of the House subcommittee on capital markets, insurance, and government sponsored enterprises. He also serves on the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit. These posts have given Baker extensive experience dealing with legislation dear to the heart of the financial sector. And it’s no surprise that the banking and investment industry has been Baker’s biggest contributor over his congressional career. The Post commented on Baker’s "dogged, though largely unsuccessful efforts to rein in" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and initiatives to limit the reach of state attorneys general.

As The Post reported, hedge funds have exploded in growth over recent years, and their aggressiveness has drawn the interest of federal and state regulators. MAF is attempting to raise its profile in Washington, and the hiring of Baker would be viewed as a step in that direction. The industry must know that a replay of last year’s fight over the obscene tax loophole for hedge fund managers is in the offing.

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Looks like our colleagues over at Taxpayers for Common Sense are getting fed up about earmarks. In the case of Rep. Don Young’s $10 million earmark to benefit a Florida political contributor, they have filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee. TCS raises the question over how the earmark found its way onto the 2005 transportation bill after it had passed both houses of Congress.

TCS has reviewed thousands of earmarks, and they have never before found one that was edited in such a manner. During the 13-day interval from when Congress passed the bill and the president signed it, the wording of the bill changed. Wording outlining a $10 million highway widening project was turned by a stealth editor into a project to build a highway overpass. A project that would provide a windfall for Young’s Florida real estate fundraiser.

In the complaint, TCS makes the case that the timing of the earmark alteration, coming after it was voted on, makes it invalid and does not have the effect of law. You would think that the Ethics Committee would act to guarantee that Congress retains the act of appropriation and not relinquish the constitutional duty to heaven knows who.

Sunshine…openness and transparency have the effect of keeping people honest. It’s easier than ever to shine light on the process of earmarks – even with the new loopholes discovered in the Senate provisions, but we have much more work to do in order to have true openness, evidenced by the gutting of ethics rules by the Senate earlier this summer. Hopefully the bloggers and the MSM will stick with us in this fight.

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Over the past week or two I’ve learned two things: do not tap your foot in the bathroom and that prudery is more prevalent on Capitol Hill than a true ethical fiber. Apparently it is more worrying that a Senator may be a deeply closeted gay man than it is that another Senator is deeply tied into a massive FBI-led corruption investigation or that a senior congressman is being investigated for perhaps the shadiest earmark ever. I read this article by Norm Ornstein today and couldn’t agree more with what he has to say. With so many corruption scandals, not just tawdry sex scandals, “Who believes that the ethics committee will act proactively to investigate allegedly scandalous behavior before stories garner headlines or result in announcements by prosecutors that Senators are targets or subjects of investigations?”

Washington is currently awash in cases of alleged ethical misconduct. From Rep. William Jefferson to Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young there are over a dozen members who could have their cases investigated by a congressional ethics committee. As you can see from this video compilation created by Josh Marshall there is more than the enough for the ethics committees to choose from.

Of course, neither ethics committee actually does any investigating of ethics unless pushed by other members and even then it is unclear what can push an investigation to become meaningful. The one case, of all the cases that actually involve impropriety in the official actions of a Member, immediately referred to the Senate Ethics Committee was the case of Sen. Larry Craig. Personally, I can’t think of a single thing that Craig has done in violation of Senate Rules and therefore I don’t know why this case, as opposed to bribery investigations, is being referred to the Ethics Committee; although I can guess.

Sexual prudery rules on Capitol Hill, while true ethical misconduct goes unnoticed. Craig had his committee seats stripped within days after he was caught tapping his foot in a men’s bathroom. Sen. Stevens, under investigation for accepting bribes from Alaska oil execs, is still the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, the most powerful committee in the Senate. Rep. Young, under investigation for trading earmarks for campaign contributions among other things, is still the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee and the second-ranking member on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the very committee from which he inserted various earmarks that have caught the attention of the FBI.

From Fanne Fox to Larry Craig, Capitol Hill has been equally appalled and enthralled by political sex scandals. Maybe it’s time they get their priorities straight and focus on the real unethical muck going on behind doors in Congress and not bathroom doors in Minneapolis. It’s time for congressmen to stop pointing their noses up and instead point them down into some papers and get to investigating the actual problems in their own house.

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Over the past two days The Hill and Congressional Quarterly have reported that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) intends to allow outside groups to file ethics complaints against members of Congress. This would be a restoration of the policy that was abolished in 1997. Since 1997 only sitting members of Congress have been allowed to file ethics complaints. This policy led to an ethics truce between the two parties where an ethics complaint to the Committee by one party would result in retaliation by the opposing party. The truce has effectively shut down all internal accountability in the House of Representatives. Allowing citizens and organizations to take part in the ethics process in Congress is not only a sensible way to engage the public in yet another part of government but it also is a good policy in terms of reducing ethics violations and corruption.

Since the truce went into effect five sitting congressmen have been indicted, Rep. Jim Traficant, Rep. Tom DeLay, Rep. Duke Cunningham, Rep. Bob Ney, and now, Rep. William Jefferson. Aside from DeLay, who was censured by the ethics committee for activities separate from his subsequent indictment, none of these indicted members of Congress were subject to an ethics inquiry. The allegations, later proved true, against Cunningham had been reported for months by the press yet there was no ethics inquiry. The same goes for the current case against Rep. Jefferson. There was also no investigation into the wrongdoing of members involved with criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff. If citizens and outisde organizations could present ethics complaints Congress would likely have a better public image right now.

Some members of Congress are worried that allowing citizens and organizations to file complaints will open up the process to partisan politics. These members clearly ignore the fact that the current process is frozen because of partisan politics. Speaker Pelosi has a decent proposal that ought to assuage these members' concerns. Her plan is to create "a panel of four congressional outsiders … to decide which complaints merit investigation by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct". Two members would be chosen by Pelosi and two would be chosen by Minority Leader John Boehner. This panel would be able to determine which complaints were simply partisan nonsense and which complaints deserve a fair hearing. This policy is definitely a huge step up from the ridiculous policy of nonaction currently in place while giving citizens more power to watchdog Congress is an active manner.

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The Washington Post reports that the Senate ethics committee is investigating Sen. Pete Domenici's (R-NM) role in the alleged pressuring and subsequent firing of Attorney David Iglesias. Domenici announced that he has hired K. Lee Blalack, the former defense attorney for Randy "Duke" Cunningham, to represent him. The revelations in the committee hearings on Tuesday clearly have pushed this story further as it appears that, despite constantly changing excuses, two Members of Congress put unprecedented pressure on a U.S. Attorney to bring down indictments to help the re-election campaign of Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM).

U.S. News & World Report stated yesterday that Domenici "probably doesn't need to worry about disciplinary action." Their chief opinion columnist Michael Barone has quite a different take:

When a U.S. senator (to wit, Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican) feels free to call a prosecutor at home and hang up on him for resisting political pressure in the course of executing his prosecutorial duties, the line between politics and law enforcement has been so thoroughly violated that it no longer exists.

…

Domenici would not have made that call had either a Democrat or a law-abiding Republican been in the White House. He would not have had the temerity to throw his weight around to such an outrageous extent.

What's going on in Washington is not sufficiently removed from the routine doings of a tawdry Third World dictatorship to give any American comfort.

The Senate ethics committee will likely explore the timing of the calls placed by Sen. Domenici and whether he contacted the Justice Department and what he said to them about Iglesias' performance. The real question is whether the House ethics committee will step up to the plate and investigate Rep. Wilson, who has already stated that she has essentially done exactly what Mr. Iglesias has alleged. (She just believes that her call was not intended to put pressure on Iglesias.) Right now it looks like the House will continue to be an embarrassment of ethics as it is unable and unwilling to police its own. From the DeLay inspired purge of the ethics committee in 2005 all the way through the incomprehensible Mark Foley report from late last year (everyone screwed up but they shouldn't be punished) the ethics committee in the House has been a joke. Some congressman or woman needs to step up and refer this issue to the ethics committee before this becomes a serious problem.

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The rain is gone so I can stop building that ark I was planning on using to escape. Instead of floods and flag burning amendments we’re back to good old fashioned earmarks, lobbyists, investigations, and congressmen being naughty. Let’s go to the news:

• An investigative report by the New York Daily News on Sunday revealed that since 2000 Staten Island Rep. Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.) spent $53,142 of his campaign cash on personal vacations, sometimes followed by his wife and children. The family travelled to Las Vegas, Colorado, and Florida while Fossella also spent campaign cash on 18 holes of golf at Key Biscane and even went to a Jets game in Pittsburgh. Fossella asserts that "all expenses are for legitimate campaign events or fact-finding missions that are part of his duties in Congress." What kind of facts was he trying to find at a Jets-Steelers game? Which player should be honored with a congratulatory resolution? Fossella says that he made "mistakes" but that everything was legal. Ian Stirton of the Federal Election Commission thinks otherwise. Stirton said that "violaters could face penalties of thousands of dollars" and that "the Justice Department could open a criminal probe because putting campaign donations to personal use is a crime."
• Senate Democrats are planning to force a minimum wage raise by attacking the annual congressional cost of living adjustment in members salaries. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced, "we’re going to do everything to stop the Congressional pay raise being put in — the right way, the wrong way or any way." Members currently make $165,170 a year. The pay raise would increase their salary to $168,500.
• The Boston Globe reports that "four Massachussets congressmen have attended luxurious Fourth of July weekends at Cape Cod’s exclusive Wequassett Inn in Chatham with representatives of various interest groups, courtesy of a little-known nonprofit group started by a longtime lobbyist." The nonprofit, Invest to Compete, was started by Washington lobbyist Jeanne Campbell of the firm Campbell-Crane. At issue are the ties between Invest to Compete an Campbell-Crane. Both share the same south-east Washington address, the same fax number, and the same email address. The July Fourth celebrations also highlight the ties between the firm and the nonprofit as clients of the firm are often in attendence, along with members of Congress, at the event paid for by the nonprofit. Lobbyist and lobbying firms are not allowed to pay for travel and lodging for members of Congress.
• Watchdog groups have not been too pleased with the performance of House Ethics Committee ranking Democrat Howard Berman (D-Calif.). Berman is accused of "codify[ing] … a very negligent system" by "displaying a warm rapport with Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.)". Democrats may be looking for a new ranking member or Chairman for the Ethics Committee after the election.
  

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On Wednesday, the House Ethics Committee announced that it was launching two probes into lawmakers and a third probe wide-ranging probe into possible violations by staffers and other lawmakers in the Duke Cunningham scandal. However, these probes may interfere with the current investigations that the FBI and Department of Justice Public Integrity Unit have underway. The Washington Post looks at whether the Ethics Committee is too late to the game:

The Justice Department has traditionally opposed such parallel inquiries by congressional committees for fear that lawmakers might complicate its collection of testimony and information. The Senate’s ethics panel, for instance, regularly steps aside when another enforcement agency is looking into the behavior of senators.

But House officials indicated yesterday that they hope the continuing conversations between the Justice Department and the ethics committee will avert conflicts. A spokesman for the department declined to comment.

It is doubtful that the Justice Department is happy about this development. Previously, Justice had asked the House and Senate Ethics Committees to steer clear of any investagtion relating to Jack Abramoff. The House’s investigation into Bob Ney, who is alleged to have accepted things of value from Abramoff in exchange for favorable action, clearly goes against Justice’s recommendations. A March article in Roll Call notes that the ethics committee’s rule 15(f) states that the committee “may defer action on a complaint against a Member, officer, or employee of the House of Representatives when the complaint alleges conduct that the Committee has reason to believe is being reviewed by appropriate law enforcement or regulatory authorities, or when the Committee determines that it is appropriate for the conduct alleged in the complaint to be reviewed initially by law enforcement or regulatory authorities.” An expert interviewed in the Post article states, “I can’t imagine that they will pursue subpoenas and testimony and get in the way of the Justice Department; that hasn’t happened in the past.”

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After 16 months of deadlock and inaction the House Ethics Committee has launched two investigations into members of the House, according to the Washington Post. The Ethics Committee has agreed to look into the cases of Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), alleged to have taken bribes from Jack Abramoff in return for favorable action, and Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), who is alleged to have solicited bribes in an international telecommunications deal. The panel refused to hear the case of the retiring former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), who has already been indicted in Texas on money laundering charges and has been closely tied to Jack Abramoff since the mid-90s. The gridlock on the panel actually began due to three admonishments of DeLay in 2004. After the third admonishment Speaker Dennis Hastert and DeLay purged the panel’s Republicans, installing DeLay supporters who aggravated the Democrats on the panel by attempting to change the rules on how the ethics process worked. The deadlock ended when the ranking Democrat Alan Mollohan (D-WV) stepped down after he was alleged to have misstated his personal finances and used federal earmarks to enrich himself. The current ranking Democrat is Howard Berman (D-CA) and the chairman is Doc Hastings (R-WA).

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• Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), under fire for allegedly soliciting bribes in a telecommunications deal, defiantly declared that he will not resign, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Jefferson, who has been named in two plea deals, made this statement, "No one wants to be indicted. I certainly do not and I certainly do not want anyone — a family member or a close associate — to be indicted. But I am prepared to answer these charges formally when and if the time comes. . . . I would take full responsibility for any crime that I committed, if that were the case. But I will not plead guilty to something I did not do, no matter how things are made to look and no matter the risk."
• The House Ethics Committee has announced an interim plan to review private travel for members and staff. The plan would involve voluntary cooperation by the persons or groups paying for the travel. These persons could, if they wanted, receive certification for the trip by providing the names of all persons on the trip, including relatives of the lawmaker or staffer; a detailed description of the trip, including an itinerary and agenda; a description of all travel expenses and the source of all expenses; a representation that none of the expenses were covered by a registered lobbyist, lobbying firm, or foreign agent. The Ethics Committee has made no declaration as to whether these documents would be available for public consumption.
• The Wall Street Journal reports that anonymous earmarks continue to be written despite the enormous amount of negative attention they have received in the past six months.

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