Rogue's Gallery

During the 105th Congress, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct ("House Ethics Committee") has:

• Dismissed an ethics complaint against House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R - Texas) when substantial evidence supported opening up an investigation. Roll Call wrote that "... [the Ethics Committee] has ignored a bale of evidence to exonerate DeLay of charges that he acted to benefit clients of his brother, Randy, a lobbyist, and pressured lobbyists to increase their contributions to the GOP....this decision does smack of a careless whitewash."

• Delayed a House ethics investigation of Rep. Jay Kim (R - California) until four and a half months after Kim agreed to plead guilty to concealing more than $230,000 in illegal campaign contributions. Federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Kim's case "represents the largest amount of criminal campaign finance violations ever committed by a member of Congress."

• Put the remaining portion of the ethics case against Speaker Newt Gingrich into a procedural "deep-freeze" known as the "committee agenda" based on a procedural excuse. The Ethics Committee explained that because "thirty days afforded under the rules to the respondent for the submission of a response had not elapsed at the time the House adjourned sine die..." But Gingrich had already filed a response with the Ethics Committee. And the ethics complaint in question was filed more than two years before -- far more than 30 days required in the ethics rules.

• Not established an investigative subcommittee to determine whether Rep. Corrine Brown (D - Florida) received illegal gratuities, bribes or improper gifts, and violated financial disclosure laws, by accepting an expensive car and lodging from Mr. Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko and a $10,000 payment from Rev. Henry Lyons. The Congressional Accountability Project has drafted a complaint against Rep. Brown, but no House Member has been willing to transmit the complaint to the Ethics Committee.

• Failed to establish an investigative subcommittee to determine whether Rep. Jerry Costello (D - Illinois) accepted an illegal gratuity or a bribe, violated federal financial disclosure requirements, and tried to obstruct a federal gambling investigation. Rep. Costello was an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of Amiel Cueto, who was convicted on June 11, 1997, of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and three counts of obstructing justice.

• Refused to appoint an outside counsel to investigate House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R - Pennsylvania). The New York Times wrote that the Ethics Investigative subcommittee's "first decision" regarding the Shuster case should be "to retain an outside counsel to assure that the committee has a prompt and trustworthy investigation for a change."

  Chairman Shuster was also protected by refusing to allow the Congressional Accountability Project to amend its ethics complaint, even though Ethics Committee rules allow such amendments, with the permission of the Committee. Consequently, the new charges -- regarding Chairman Shuster's dubious practice of holding joint official fact-finding and campaign fundraising activities -- are not officially pending before the Ethics Committee.