The Trump Army of Deplorables Hillary Clinton Barack Obama Lawless News DNC Progressive Socialist: WASHINGTON—The accidental leak of a congressional ethics watchdog's report offers a rare glimpse into the internal workings of one of the most secretive bodies on Capitol Hill, revealing that the panel has dealt with a far larger number of lawmakers than previously publicly disclosed.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

WASHINGTON—The accidental leak of a congressional ethics watchdog's report offers a rare glimpse into the internal workings of one of the most secretive bodies on Capitol Hill, revealing that the panel has dealt with a far larger number of lawmakers than previously publicly disclosed.

WASHINGTON—The accidental leak of a congressional ethics watchdog's report offers a rare glimpse into the internal workings of one of the most secretive bodies on Capitol Hill, revealing that the panel has dealt with a far larger number of lawmakers than previously publicly disclosed.

The House Ethics Committee has said publicly that it is formally investigating possible breaches by a total of eight current lawmakers at the present time. A confidential report disclosed by the Washington Post suggests the panel either spoke with, or examined behavior by, at least 30 lawmakers in July as part of several inquiries into whether lawmakers violated congressional rules.

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Getty Images A document leaked from the House Ethics Committee outlined probes by the panel and the quasi-independent Office of Congressional Ethics, shown.

The committee has long been criticized for being too secretive, and critics ask whether lawmakers can be sufficiently aggressive about investigating their own colleagues. "The record of the ethics committee is not one of transparency," said Lisa Gilbert, a spokeswoman for U.S. PIRG, a consumer-advocacy group that has pressed the panel to make more information about its operations public.

Since Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, they have sought to make more information public about the workings of the ethics committee. Last year, the House approved a new independent ethics agency to refer matters to the committee and created rules for the first time to make more information public about the status of investigations.

MoreHouse Ethics Committee Widens Probe of Waters House Ethics Panel Probes Earmarks by 7 Lawmakers .

Two current investigations undertaken by the ethics panel were announced Thursday as a result of those new rules.

The document obtained by the Washington Post was an internal status report from July that summarized the committee's activities at the time. The report became public when a junior aide on the committee put the document on her personal computer and then used a peer-to-peer network, which allowed someone to hack into her computer and obtain the document. That person then gave the confidential material to the Washington Post.

The 10-member ethics panel, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, is one of the most secretive congressional committees. Lawmakers and panel staffers take a vow of secrecy and the panel rarely makes public statements about its activities.

The committee operates similarly to a grand jury, said Pedro Ribeiro, a spokesman for Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.), its current chairwoman.

The committee's secrecy is rooted in rules created by lawmakers that seek to protect confidentiality of those under investigation.

"Most members of Congress would prefer that a matter never becomes public," said Kenneth Gross, an ethics attorney with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates. As a result, much of the committee's work "is not public information and will never become public information."

Critics of the congressional ethics process say the panel is a toothless internal watchdog. They say it rarely sanctions lawmakers and airs little information about its activities.

"The fact that they are considering so many people doesn't mean that they are going to do anything ," said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor and now executive director of the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "The ethics committee doesn't have a very strong track record."

Before the Post report, the ethics panel had made public that it was looking into the activities of several lawmakers. One matter involved relationships between members of House's defense-spending panel and a lobbying firm, PMA Group. PMA Group has since closed.

The new revelations indicate that the PMA probe has involved a much larger number of lawmakers than previous public reports had indicated. The report shows the Ethics Committee has spoken to seven members of the defense-spending panel in an effort to determine whether lawmakers violated House ethics rules by trading spending earmarks for campaign donations.

The report names Reps. Jack Murtha (D., Pa.), Peter Visclosky (D., Ind.), James Moran (D., Va.), Norm Dicks (D., Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D., Ohio), Bill Young (R., Fla.) and Todd Tiahrt (R., Kan.), according to the Washington Post.

The lawmakers have denied wrongdoing. In a press statement, Mr. Dicks said he is "confident that all of my actions as a member of the House have been appropriate, and I expect that when all the inquiries are concluded, I will be completely exonerated."

Emily Blout, a spokeswoman for Mr. Moran, said the congressman is "not under investigation." Steve Fought, a spokesman for Mrs. Kaptur, said Mrs. Kaptur "has absolutely nothing to hide.

The other lawmakers didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

It isn't clear whether the lawmakers may have done anything improper or are even targets of the investigation. The law doesn't preclude lawmakers from directing government money to entities that donate money to their campaigns.

In order for the Ethics Committee or the Justice Department to prove serious wrongdoing, they must prove that the lawmakers solicited campaign contributions in exchange for contracts from the government.

It is possible, however, that the names of the lawmakers appear on the list because they were being interviewed as witnesses in this or other matters.

On Thursday afternoon, the senior Democrat and Republican on the Ethics Committee spoke on the House floor to inform lawmakers about the breach. Rep. Jo Bonner (R., Ala.), the top committee Republican, said that if a lawmaker's name appeared in the report, it "should not be inferred that a member is under investigation."

For example, Mr. Bonner said that if a lawmaker called the committee to make sure a business trip complied with House ethics rules, "their name would appear on this weekly report…that doesn't mean they are doing anything other than following the rules of the House."

On Thursday, the ethics committee announced it has started full-blown investigations into Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) and Rep. Laura Richardson (D., Calif.). Those investigations were recommended by the Office of Congressional Ethics.

The committee wants to know if Mrs. Waters violated ethics rules by helping direct federal bailout money to a Boston bank in which her husband owned shares and once served on the board of directors. The panel is investigating whether Mrs. Richardson received special treatment in a real-estate transaction.

Mrs. Waters said in a statement that she is "confident that as the investigation moves forward the panel will discover that there are no facts to support allegations."

A statement from the office of Mrs. Richardson said she is pleased that the allegations against her will "finally be addressed in a fair, unbiased, bi-partisan evaluation of the facts."

The Ethics Committee also announced that it had dismissed a case against Rep. Sam Graves (R., Mo.), which had sought to determine if he improperly invited an associate to testify at a congressional hearing.

In a report that accompanied the dismissal, the Ethics Committee criticized the work of the Office of Congressional Ethics as "fundamentally flawed."

Write to Brody Mullins at brody.mullins@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A3

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Tuesday, March 18, 2014

WASHINGTON—The accidental leak of a congressional ethics watchdog's report offers a rare glimpse into the internal workings of one of the most secretive bodies on Capitol Hill, revealing that the panel has dealt with a far larger number of lawmakers than previously publicly disclosed.

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