Lawmakers caught in between ethics cops
A report indicated that 10 members of Congress had improperly accepted travel and gifts from an Azerbaijan oil company.
Two Capitol Hill panels that police the ethics of members of Congress appear to be battling about which has authority over 10 lawmakers accused of unwittingly accepting improper travel and gifts from the state oil company of Azerbaijan.
A Washington Post story published Wednesday detailed the contents of a confidential Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) investigation of a 2013 trip to Azerbaijan, a former republic of the Soviet Union in Central Asia.
The OCE was created in 2008 to vet ethics cases and recommend action to the House Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee retains sole authority to judge whether members have broken the rules and to mete out punishment. It apparently asked the OCE to drop this case.
The OCE report indicated that 10 members of Congress had improperly accepted travel and gifts from the oil company, which secretly paid for the trip and not the non-profit groups that pur- portedly sponsored it. The lawmakers said they had no idea the non-profits were not the true sponsors, and apparently neither did the Ethics Committee, which approved the plans in advance.
The report found no evidence that the lawmakers made any effort to aid an Azeri pipeline project the company was pushing.
Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., one of the lawmakers involved in the case, said the Ethics Committee asked the OCE to stop its investigation because it had started one of its own. OCE declined, however, the Post reported.
The refusal is “pretty outrageous,” said Chris DeLacy, a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight who represents lawmakers in ethics cases.
The OCE report indicates that Meeks did not cooperate with its investigation, according to the
Post. But Meeks’ spokeswoman, Sophia Lafargue, said he gave OCE “documents and other information,” and said it did not tell him the Ethics Committee had asked it to end its review despite House rules requiring it do so.
The 2008 House resolution that created the OCE states that when it’s notified that the Ethics Committee is investigating a case, “the board shall refer such matter to the committee and cease its preliminary or second-phase review ... and so notify any individual who is the (review’s) subject.”
OCE’s own rules state it will stop its investigation when the Ethics Committee starts “an investigatory subcommittee” — its rarely used formal investigative process. The committee makes a public announcement when it creates those subcommittees and has not announced one for the Azerbaijan trip.
The process worked except for the leak, said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at watchdog group Public Citizen. If the committee “prevailed upon the OCE to not do a report, (the case likely) would have been buried.”