>>Dozens in Congress under ethics inquiry – washingtonpost.com

Dozens in Congress under ethics inquiry – washingtonpost.com

Is it any wonder Congressmen will do anything to be elected and then re-elected  when one considers the  amount of dollars  and other perks that come their way?  Of course you and I the tax payers pay dearly for every one of these dollars; so much in fact that we would be much better off financially if we paid members of congress ten times as much as we do and had honest people in office!  Because for every dollar lobbyists,  in the name of companies and  foreign governments and anyone else who wants something from the United States piggy bank,  pay under the heading of graft we the tax payers pay thousands more in contracts as pay back to these favored ones.  Then once the contracts are procured the company can forever collect with costs overruns and  other bogus time and money consuming gimmicks.

So here we have a document that was not supposed to meet the light of day showing that the House Ethics Committee is investigating dozens of these lawmakers who hold our future in their hands. (We haven’t gotten this kind of inside information about Senators yet unfortunately).

One more thing to keep in mind while reading this post:  Congressmen in the House of Representatives are elected by a very tiny segment of the population and usually these Representatives make sure to take the pork home so they continue to be elected no matter how dishonest they may be or how dangerous to the rest of the country.  Rep. Barney Frank is a prime example of a Representative elected again  and again to Congress and he is the one person who almost single-handedly made the Financial Crisis possible.  And, he is back at the same games forcing banks to make bad loans so the next Financial Crisis is just around the corner!  The entire population will have to pay for what a tiny group of people decide to elect.  The only way the country can get rid of a member of the House if their district re-elects them is for the other members of the House decides to take them down.  This of course doesn’t often happen because the members are  covering for each other.

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.

The 22-page “Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report” gives brief summaries of ethics panel investigations of the conduct of 19 lawmakers and a few staff members. It also outlines the work of the new Office of Congressional Ethics, a quasi-independent body that initiates investigations and provides recommendations to the ethics committee. The document indicated that the office was reviewing the activities of 14 other lawmakers. Some were under review by both ethics bodies.

Ethics committee investigations are not uncommon. Most result in private letters that either exonerate or reprimand a member. In some rare instances, the censure is more severe.

Many of the broad outlines of the cases cited in the July document are known — the committee announced over the summer that it was reviewing lawmakers with connections to the now-closed PMA Group, a lobbying firm. But the document indicates that the inquiry was broader than initially believed. It included a review of seven lawmakers on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee who have steered federal money to the firm’s clients and have also received large campaign contributions.

– The Justice Department has told the ethics panel to suspend a probe of Rep.  Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), whose personal finances federal investigators began reviewing in early 2006 after complaints from a conservative group that he was not fully revealing his real estate holdings. There has been no public action on that inquiry for several years. But the department’s request in early July to the committee suggests that the case continues to draw the attention of federal investigators, who often ask that the House and Senate ethics panels refrain from taking action against members whom the department is already investigating.  (NOTE:  Justice Department  is the domain of Marxist Attorney General Eric Holder who has been actively  protecting any Obama supporters.)

The document also disclosed that:

– Ethics committee staff members have interviewed House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) about one element of the complex investigation of his personal finances, ( Rangel has several times been named the King of Por.  BB) as well as the lawmaker’s top aide and his son. Rangel said he spoke with ethics committee staff members regarding a conference that he and four other members of the Congressional Black Caucus attended last November in St. Martin. The trip initially was said to be sponsored by a nonprofit foundation run by a newspaper. But the three-day event, at a luxury resort, was underwritten by major corporations such as Citigroup, Pfizer and AT&T. Rules passed in 2007, shortly after Democrats reclaimed the majority following a wave of corruption cases against Republicans, bar private companies from paying for congressional travel.

– The committee on June 9 authorized issuance of subpoenas to the Justice Department, the National Security Agency and the FBI for “certain intercepted communications” regarding  Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). As was reported earlier this year, Harman was heard in a 2005 conversation agreeing to an Israeli operative’s request to try to obtain leniency for two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for the agent’s help in lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to name her chairman of the intelligence committee. The department, a former U.S. official said, declined to respond to the subpoena.

Because of the secretive nature of the ethics committee, it was difficult to assess the current status of the investigations cited in the July document. The panel said Thursday, however, that it is ending a probe of Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) after finding no ethical violations, and that it is investigating the financial connections of two California Democrats.

The committee did not detail the two newly disclosed investigations. However, according to the July document, Rep. Maxine Waters, (an avowed Marxist! BB) a high-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, came under scrutiny because of activities involving OneUnited Bank of Massachusetts, in which her husband owns at least $250,000 in stock.

Waters arranged a September 2008 meeting at the Treasury Department where OneUnited executives asked for government money. In December, Treasury selected OneUnited as an early participant in the bank bailout program, injecting $12.1 million.

The other, Rep. Laura Richardson, may have failed to mention property, income and liabilities on financial disclosure forms.

See this related story:

Seven members of House defense subcommittee scrutinized by ethics investigators – washingtonpost.com

Nearly half the members of a powerful House subcommittee in control of Pentagon spending are under scrutiny by ethics investigators in Congress, who have trained their lens on the relationships between seven panel members and an influential lobbying firm founded by a former Capitol Hill aide.

The investigations by two separate ethics offices include an examination of the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense, John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), as well as others who helped steer federal funds to clients of the PMA Group. The lawmakers received campaign contributions from the firm and its clients. A document obtained by The Washington Post shows that the subcommittee members under scrutiny also include Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) , C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.).

The document also indicates that the House ethics committee’s staff recently interviewed the staff of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) about his allegation that a PMA lobbyist threatened him in 2007 when he resisted steering federal funds to a PMA client. The lobbyist told a Nunes staffer that if the lawmaker didn’t help, the defense contractor would move out of Nunes’s district and take dozens of jobs with him.

The document obtained by The Post offers the most detailed picture yet of a widening inquiry into the relationships between lawmakers and PMA, a lobbying firm founded by Paul Magliocchetti that has been under criminal investigation by the Justice Department. A year ago, the FBI raided PMA’s offices and carted away boxes of records dealing with its political donations and the firm’s efforts to win congressionally directed funds, known as “earmarks,” for clients.

The document shows that both the ethics committee and the Office of Congressional Ethics are looking into the matter. The OCE investigates and makes recommendations to the House ethics committee, which has the power to subpoena and sanction lawmakers. Internal ethics investigations of members of Congress are normally confidential, but The Post learned details of their work through the document, which became available on a file-sharing network.

Under the description of the OCE inquiry, the document says investigators are looking at House members who may have been “accepting contributions or other items of value from PMA’s PAC in exchange for an official act.” A Hill source cautioned that the ethics committee has not gathered a significant amount of material and has not zeroed in on specific lawmakers.

$200 million in earmarks

Together, the seven legislators have personally steered more than $200 million in earmarks to clients of the PMA Group in the past two years, and received more than $6.2 million in campaign contributions from PMA and its clients in the past decade, according to an analysis by Congressional Quarterly and Taxpayers for Common Sense.

While lawmakers received generous contributions, PMA used its growing influence with the panel over the past decade to become one of the top 10 lobby shops in Washington and took in $114 million in lobbying fees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.

Moran, a senior member of the defense panel whose former top aide went to work for the PMA Group, said he recently sat for a lengthy interview with two aides from the OCE. He said he asked the new ethics office to interview all of his current and former staff members, including his former chief of staff who became a PMA lobbyist, Melissa Koloszar.

Moran hosted an event for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in his Alexandria home last year, the lawmaker said, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as the guest of honor. Magliocchetti and some of his clients were in attendance, writing checks for $28,500 each, Moran said.

Murtha’s office declined to comment. The offices and representatives of Dicks, Visclosky, Young and Tiahart did not respond to (the Post’s)  questions about the scrutiny.