"Using the scandal as a springboard, less conservative Democrats and Republicans carried the "reform" battle cry and also gained a stronger foothold in the legislature. Democrats, defensively, charged that the whole scandal atmosphere in Texas was a national Republican plot, originated in the Nixon administration's Department of Justice. But before the smoke cleared, Will Wilson, an ex-Democratic Texas attorney general, by then one of the top Texas Republicans in the federal government, was hounded from his position as chief of the criminal division of the Department of Justice because of his own business dealings with Sharp. That "general" group of conservative democrats and republicans certainly could have included a Congressman named Bush.
George H W Bush ran for Congress in 1966 two years after he lost to incumbent Senator Ralph Yarborough in 1964. He won and served two terms in Congress before running again for the Senate in 1970. He had hoped to be running again against Yarborough who had become very unpopular among Texas conservatives, but Lloyd Benstsen (whose son was also in the same TANG unit as W) knocked Yarborough off in the DemocRAT primary. Bush lost the race but did pretty well for a Republican in Texas. President Nixon rewarded former Rep. Bush by appointing him ambassador to the UN in 1971 then making him chairmnan of the RNC in 1972.