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Weak-Kneed Reprimand of DeLay Attacked

By Jeralyn, Section Other Politics
Posted on Fri Oct 01, 2004 at 11:33:40 PM EST
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Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have condemned the weak admonition of the House Ethics Committee against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay over his attempted bribery of Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI). DeLay had strong-armed Smith to vote for the Administration-backed medicare reform bill.

Outrageously, Rep. DeLay has 'thanked' the Committee for its 'guidance' and stated that he would never have knowingly broken any House rules. This statement is laughable given that Rep. DeLay has been reprimanded by the Ethics Committee before and, if anything, has only become more blatant in violating the rules.

"Rep. DeLay's offer to support Mr. Smith's son's candidacy in return for Mr. Smith's vote on the Medicare bill is nothing less bribery -- a federal crime. It is impossible to believe that Rep. DeLay is not aware that bribery is against the law. Neither Rep. DeLay -- nor any other federal official -- should need 'guidance' on this point. In any event, ignorance of the law is not a defense to a bribery charge. A mere admonition is not sufficient. It is time for the Department of Justice to step in and prosecute Rep. DeLay for this crime.

There's more. The group accuses the Ethics Committee of purposely timing the release of the repriminand with yesterday's debate hoping it would get lost in debate coverage.

"In addition, the fact that the Ethics Committee took months to investigate the Nick Smith matter and then chose to release its report admonishing Rep. DeLay only minutes before the first debate in the presidential election, despite the fact that the Committee met to discuss the already prepared report much earlier in the day, suggests to the cynical that the Committee hoped that its decision would be lost in the media coverage of the debate.

After criticizing the Committee for failing to investigate another complaint against DeLay by Rep. Chris Bell (D-TX), the group concludes with:

The Congress goes out of session at the end of next week and it would be a shocking dereliction of responsibility for the Ethics Committee not to appoint a subcommittee to investigate the allegations of wrongdoing now swarming around Rep. DeLay. It appears that the Ethics Committee of the 108th Congress will be remembered for finally making the House of Representatives an ethics free zone."

This is DeLay's second ethics strike. Some think three will put him out.

A lot of members on Capitol Hill believe in the concept of 'three strikes, you're out,' " said Fred Wertheimer, a longtime advocate of public ethics and president of Democracy 21. "And Mr. DeLay has two strikes and a third case pending."

Similar coverage from The New York Times :

"Mr. DeLay has a track record now in the ethics area, and it's a bad one," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a watchdog group that has called for the ethics panel to hire an independent counsel to investigate Mr. DeLay. "There's just no basis on which the House ethics committee can do anything now but seriously move forward with an investigation into the ethics complaint pending before it."

In a related DeLay matter, the Washington Post reports on a catty letter the Congressman sent to Doubleday Publishers when returning a review copy of Kitty Kelly's book on the Bush Family. Kelly's people respond:

"Considering the many ethical inquiries surrounding Representative DeLay, we understand why he prefers not to accept anything free right now."

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