Dozens of House Members Targeted in Ethics Probes

by Deb Cupples |  From the Department of the Not Surprising, the Washington Post reports:

"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 report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer."

Inadvertently placed where all sorts of folks could read it? Hmmmm.  A different Washington Post article has interesting details:

"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.)."

You can see the rest of that story here and commentary at Memeorandum.

Other Buck Naked Politics Posts:

* Grayson Calls Lobbyist "K Street Whore"; GOP Ignores Context

* Bailed-out Banks Claim Huge Profits, Plan to Give Huge Bonuses

* House Committee Finally Probes Mortgage Lenders

* Contractor Fraud: Driving up Medicare's Costs by Billions

* White House Says Fox Isn't Really News: Duhhh!

* Obama Finally (and Bluntly) Calls Out Insurance Industry

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Comments

[flowerplough]

Dozens? More like seven, and they're all black. Start the screaming.

Racial disparity: All active ethics probes focus on black lawmakers(http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29055.html)

The House ethics committee is currently investigating seven African-American lawmakers — more than 15 percent of the total in the House. And an eighth black member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), would be under investigation if the Justice Department hadn’t asked the committee to stand down.

Not a single white lawmaker is currently the subject of a full-scale ethics committee probe.

( ... )

A document leaked to The Washington Post last week showed that nearly three dozen lawmakers have come under scrutiny this year by either the House ethics committee or the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog created in 2008 at the insistence of Pelosi. While the list contained a substantial number of white lawmakers, the ethics committee has not yet launched formal investigative subcommittees with respect to any of them — as it has with the seven African-American members.