Ethics launches probe of CBC Caribbean trip
The House ethics committee has launched a formal investigation into two trips Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) took to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008.
The committee voted Wednesday to establish an investigative subcommittee to look into the matter and issued a release late that night. http://ad.thehill.com/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=2154&campaignid=1838&zoneid=33&channel_ids=,&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fthehill.com%2Findex2.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D83688%26pop%3D1%26page%3D0%26Itemid%3D70&cb=a62101b93f
“The subcommittee will have jurisdiction to conduct a full and complete inquiry into allegations that have arisen regarding the sponsorship of the travel in 2007 and 2008,” the release stated. “At the conclusion of its inquiry, the subcommittee is to report its findings, conclusions and recommendations to the full committee.”
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) will chair the investigative subcommittee, Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.) will serve as the ranking member, and Reps. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) and Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) will also serve on the panel.
Articles in The Hill and the New York Post have raised questions about the funding for a three-day conference held at the St. Maarten Sonesta Maho Bay Resort & Casino in early November. The conference is an annual event, and the ethics committee also is examining a 2007 trip to Antigua and Barbuda.
The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) first reviewed the Caribbean travel and apparently found enough evidence to recommend further inquiry by the ethics committee.
House rules imposed by Democrats after they took back the majority in 2006 bar lawmakers from accepting travel lasting more than two days if corporations that “employ or retain a registered lobbyist” are underwriting or organizing any part of the trip.
The rule change was designed to prevent trips such as the now-infamous golf junket to Scotland that lobbyist Jack Abramoff organized; corporate interests paid for that trip but members who attended listed a nonprofit as the sponsor.
Lawmakers who attended the Caribbean trip listed the New York Carib Foundation, a nonprofit group affiliated with a newspaper aimed at New York City’s U.S. Caribbean immigrant community, as the sponsor.
The conservative National Legal and Policy Center’s president, Peter Flaherty, traveled to St. Maarten and took photos and recorded speeches made at the conference that demonstrate evidence of corporate sponsorship. He has since handed over photos and transcripts of the remarks to the ethics committee.
In addition to Rangel, Reps. Carolyn Kilpatrick (Mich.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Donald Payne (N.J.), Bennie Thompson (Miss.) and Virgin Islands Del. Donna Christensen (D) attended the 2008 trip to St. Maarten.
Rangel, his chief of staff George Dalley and Christensen, Thompson, Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) and the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), who chaired the ethics panel at the time, participated in the 2007 trip to Antigua and Barbuda.
In remarks at the conference during a session in St. Maarten, Payne and Kilpatrick thanked the corporate sponsors of the event, according to Flaherty’s notes and transcripts. His photos showed two large banners displaying the corporate logos of Citigroup, AT&T, Pfizer, IBM, Verizon and others posted directly above and attached to the front of the podium where the two lawmakers made their remarks.
The New York Carib Foundation checked “yes” on an ethics form before the trip certifying that it would not be financed “in whole or part” by a federally registered lobbyist and that the sponsor or sponsors had not accepted “from any other source fund earmarks directly or indirectly to finance any aspect of the trip.”
The ethics committee signed off on the trip based on the information the New York Carib News Foundation and members provided to the panel.
In the past week, CBC members have complained about the probe, first initiated and reviewed by the OCE. The CBC members said that the office does not have enough minority staffers and that the investigators were brusque in their questioning.
The CBC is scheduled to meet with the OCE staff Friday to review the new office’s policies and procedures, something it does regularly to familiarize members and staffers with the new office.
Leo Wise, the OCE’s staff director, noted that the OCE has three investigative counsels, an Arab-American, a woman and an African-American who has been hired but hasn’t started yet.
He also said that the staff has received only praise for its professionalism and discretion.
The OCE is an independent review board composed mainly of former members of Congress that was created last year to help provide some outside oversight to a tarnished ethics process. It serves as a preliminary hearing board for potential ethics violations and makes referrals and recommendations to the full House ethics committee.
Several CBC members opposed the creation of the OCE and voted against the initiative spearheaded by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), including Jackson Lee. Rangel, Kilpatrick and Thompson did not vote when the measure creating the OCE came to the floor.
Mike Soraghan contributed to this story
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