Posted on 10/29/2009 2:12:20 PM PDT by jazusamo
Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) is criticizing the new ethics office that recommended he be reviewed by the House ethics panel.
Graves issues a statement Thursday thanking the House ethics committee for dismissing the charges against him and lashed out at the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). Graves struck early by releasing the statement before the ethics panel publicly announced that it had unanimously dismissed the complaint against him.
Graves lashed out at the OCE in his statement, accusing it of investigating an anonymous complaint and looking into a matter that even if true did not violate House ethics rules.
“I appreciate the committee’s work and its prompt dismissal of this matter,” Graves said in the release. “In dismissing this matter, the committee found that not only was there no violation of any rule, but that even if the allegation were true, there would have been no violation of any rule.”
Graves said the “anonymous accusation amounted to nothing more than a political smear.”
Neither the OCE nor the ethics committee has indicated what allegations had surfaced against Graves. The OCE insisted in its third quarter report that it has never acted on an anonymous complaint or on the mere basis of allegations raised in newspaper reports.
The ethics panel is expected to announce on Thursday that it has dismissed the Graves case.
Graves has said the complaint focused on testimony before the Small Business Committee. Media reports have focused on charges that Graves invited a friend and neighbor, Brooks Hurst, to testify at a hearing on renewable fuels without disclosing that his wife and Hurst are investors in renewable fuels plans in Missouri.
This may have created a perception of a conflict that led the OCE to recommend that ethics conduct a review.
Though Graves has argued that House ethics rules don’t address perception issues, an overarching ethics rule bars any member activity that reflects negatively on the House as an institution. In addition, the ethics committee has a history of taking action against members based on an appearance problem.
In October 2004, the ethics committee admonished then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) three times. In a letter to DeLay, the committee explained that at the very least, DeLay’s attendance at an energy company golf fundraiser for his political action committees created an appearance problem.
Graves’s attack on OCE comes as the new entity is locked in an intense dispute with the ethics committee over how the OCE conducts its work and what information the ethics panel must make public about OCE investigations.
The rules governing the creation of the OCE force the ethics committee to release the office’s investigative reports on members that are forwarded to the panel for further review unless it launches an investigative subcommittee, a sign the committee is seriously digging into the allegations.
The Graves statement is intended to intimidate OCE staff and board members, most of whom are ex-members of Congress, and stir up opposition to the office, sources in the ethics community said. Graves and others are trying to discredit the OCE among other lawmakers, many of whom already fear the new investigative body.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed for the outside ethics office as part of her pledge to "drain the swamp" in Washington and establish the most ethical Congress in history. Still, legislation creating the OCE barely passed the House.
OCE board members have threatened to resign this week as tensions flared with the ethics committee about how the OCE conducts investigations and what the ethics committee must make public about probes that result in a dismissal.
Graves said he cooperated “in good faith and in full candor” with the inquiry, and that he complied with every request in the process, which he believed was a pro forma inquirty.
“I understand that the nature of politics sometimes involves fending off frivolous, anonymous allegations,” he continued. “But our ethics process, like our system of justice, must be built upon bedrock principles of due process and fundamental fairness. I am glad the Committee and its membership evaluated these allegations for what they were- baseless and completely unfounded attacks on my character.”
Not knowing anything about the alleged lapses against Graves he may well not have erred but it's evident the OCE is taking accusations more seriously against Reps than the Ethics Committee.
her pledge to "drain the swamp" in Washington and establish the most ethical Congress in history. Still, legislation creating the OCE barely passed the House.
Surprising that it did pass, House members don't want people looking into corruption.
Gonna be interesting to see what the Ethics Committee says about the Maxine Waters complaint, I’d bet they’ll punt and not do a thing.
..yet Charlie Rangel still walks a free man.
Gangsters.
Yep, and the Ethics Committee won’t touch him unless he’s convicted in a court of law as Jefferson was, the committee is a joke.
insert obvious joke here:____________________
Pelosi should be investigated and thrown in jail.
These jokesters should have to take the ethics courses that
I have to take at my job. But then ethics is probably just
subjective to them anyway. They probably go by feelings.
HAHAHAHA Nancy calling for draining the swamp? Funny Nancy. But if the House really ever does this, better have a big enough drain, and Nanc, you would be the first one it sucked down to the sewer, where you belong.
Agreed, she’d be one of the first to go. She, her husband and the family have much to answer for but they’ll never have to.
Under the Clean Water Act, they would have to filter out and retain all the filth, and only release the filtered water.
Like any government program, the end result would be worse than if nothing had been done.
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