Ethics

Only In Washington: Ethics Questions Follow Ethics Chairman

Susan Crabtree | September 22, 2011, 6:06PM

Reps. Jo Bonner (R-AL) and Maxine Waters (D-CA)

Rep. Jo Bonner's GOP primary challenger is trying to stir up some ethics trouble that could create more headaches for Bonner, the sitting chairman of the House Ethics Committee, not too far down the road.

Dean Young, a Republican candidate for Alabama's 1st district, this week brought up a series of conflicts-of-interest questions that have followed Bonner since a botched Ethics Committee investigation of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) last fall.

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Maxine Waters

Waters To Ethics Panel: Dismiss Case -- Or Else

Susan Crabtree | July 18, 2011, 6:02PM

Reps. Jo Bonner (R-AL) and Maxine Waters (D-CA)

An attorney for Rep. Maxine Waters' (D-CA) is calling on the Ethics Committee to dismiss immediately the charges against her in the wake of an unprecedented leak of secret internal committee documents providing a blow-by-blow account of the panel's alleged bungling of the case.

The scores of Ethics Committee e-mails and memos, reported by Politico Monday with links to the documents, paint a picture of a committee consumed by partisan dysfunction and accusations of professional misconduct surrounding Waters' case.

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Maxine Waters

Sinking Ship? Waters Seizes On Leaked Secret Ethics Committee Docs

Susan Crabtree | July 18, 2011, 10:56AM

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) is contemplating her next move in response to a game-changing Ethics Committee leak of hundreds of documents detailing the alleged internal mishandling of her case.

Waters is expected to demand copies of the documents from the panel as early as today, a spokesman told TPM Monday morning after a report in Politico quoted internal Ethics Committee e-mails and memos that paint a picture of a committee consumed by partisan dysfunction and accusations of professional misconduct surrounding her case.

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Ethics

Pols Brace For Probes After House Ethics Panel Staffs Up

Susan Crabtree | June 28, 2011, 4:42PM

Reps. Jo Bonner (R-AL) and Maxine Waters (D-CA)

The House Ethics Committee has hired six new staffers, ending a nearly seven-month period when the panel suffered an exodus of aides and investigative functions were at a standstill, the House Ethics Committee said in a statement Tuesday.

The hirings complete the staff roster and come one month after the committee unanimously tapped Daniel Schwager, a former counsel for the Senate Ethics Committee, as its staff director.

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Ethics

'Non-Partisan' House Ethics Staffer Donated To RNC

Susan Crabtree | March 16, 2011, 5:00PM

The House and Senate Ethics Committees are supposed to be the two panels in Congress that operate, to the best of their ability, in a nonpartisan way. At least, that's what they say.

There are plenty of internal committee rules stating that all staff must be non-partisan and abide by rules barring them from engaging in political or partisan activity of any kind. But there is little proof, as TPM has discovered, that anyone is enforcing these rules.

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Ethics

Watchdogs: Ethics Committee In Turmoil Over Partisan Staff

Susan Crabtree | March 15, 2011, 6:00AM

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)

Government watchdogs are condemning a decision to allow a Republican office to become a safe haven for supposedly nonpartisan Ethics Committee staff, saying it's one of the leading reasons why the panel is so dysfunctional.

The House Ethics Committee, led by Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL), has virtually shut down amid partisan recriminations and staff sniping over last year's handling of the case against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA). Last week TPM reported that at least one of the panel's attorneys who had been suspended for allegedly mishandling the case had soft-landed on the GOP side of the House Natural Resources Committee, run by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA).

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Ethics

One Mystery Solved: Suspended Ethics Attorney Finds Home With GOP

Susan Crabtree | March 11, 2011, 9:30AM

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)

UPDATE: Rep. Doc Hastings, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee issued a release saying Kim is the first hire for the newly created Office of Oversight and Investigations, which will scrutinize the activities of the Department of Interior and "other agencies under the committee's purview."

One of the suspended attorneys at the center of the standoff between Republicans and Democrats on the House Ethics Committee has found a new gig on the House Natural Resources Committee.

Morgan Kim, who served as deputy chief of staff of the Ethics Committee in the last Congress and lead attorney on the case against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), was recently hired by Republicans on the Natural Resources panel and is now working full-time there, two House aides confirmed for TPM Thursday.

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Ethics

In Limbo: Suspended Ethics Committee Attorneys Still On House Payroll

Susan Crabtree | February 25, 2011, 2:12PM

Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL)

Last year was particularly rough for House Democrats as the messy public ethics spectacles involving prominent Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel (NY) and Maxine Waters (CA) played out for all the world to see right in the waning months before a difficult and ultimately devastating election for Democrats.

Now that Republicans are in charge of the House, watchdogs are scrutinizing their every move, waiting for signs that they're weakening the ethics standards or continuing Congress's long history of slow-walking ethics cases and its seeming inability to impose tough sanctions on those who break the rules.

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