Roll Call: House Ethics Committee Investigating Smith Bribery Allegations

[NewJerseyDem]

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/4258-1.html

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct confirmed Wednesday evening that it had two months earlier initiated an “informal fact-finding” into allegations that Rep. Nick Smith’s (R-Mich.) November vote on a Medicare bill was linked “with support for the Congressional candidacy of his son.”

In a statement issued by Chairman Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) and ranking member Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), the panel said: “Under Committee rules our fact finding activities are conducted on a confidential basis, and no further public comment will be made in this matter except in accordance with committee rules.”

The announcement came amid rising tensions that an ethics war may be brewing in the chamber and just hours after Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) approached Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) on the floor to press him to call for an investigation.

Hoyer said Wednesday night that he found it “ironic” that Hefley “said just days ago that they were not investigating this matter,” and he slammed GOP leaders for “giving the perception that they have no interest in pursuing it.”

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. My, my, we may actually

get an investigation into this. QUICK get the CSPAN tapes, it is clear a lot of strong arming was going on!

[NewJerseyDem]

2. Well

We won't know if any strong arming gets done during the investigation because the Ethics Committee does all of its work in secrecy and everything is done behind closed doors. It is actually kind of weird that nobody necessarily really knows if the Ethics Committee is even investigating somthing.