Last night, Politico reported on the media blitz underway by Doug Hampton, the former staffer of Senator John Ensign, whose wife, a campaign staffer for the Senator, had an affair with Ensign. Buried in the bottom of that article was another potential ethics issue for the embattled Senator:

The New York Times reported that Ensign and Hampton took an official congressional delegation to Iraq in February 2008 and that Ensign called Hampton’s wife there by telephone. POLITICO has learned that Hampton was brought on the trip, which also went to Afghanistan, despite the fact that he did not have a security clearance — and that Ensign was the only senator not to bring a military adviser on the trip.

After the trip, it became apparent to people who knew both men that they had feuded abroad, sources said. Days later, there was a major confrontation at the Capitol Hill home where Ensign lived with several senators, including Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), another trip attendee.

Ethics experts say the codel — which records show cost more than $10,000 per person — could cause additional ethical problems for Ensign if investigators look at how Ensign used his public office during the affair.

One would like to think that the Senate Ethics Committee would investigate this aspect of the Ensign scandal. Using taxpayer dollars to further an extramarital affair with an employee should warrant scrutiny. 

This should turn some heads on Capitol Hill.

Former Rep. William Jefferson will be sentenced this week.The prosecutors in his case want the former member to spend 27 years in prison: 

Prosecutors want a sentence of at least 27 years for a Democrat convicted of accepting more than $400,000 in bribes while in office.

A federal court found 18-year Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) guilty this past August on 11 counts of bribery, racketeering and money-laundering. Federal guidelines specify he could face more than 20 years of prison time for his misdeeds, but prosecutors on Monday made clear they will make the case for at least 27 years — and a maximum of 33 years — when sentencing begins this Friday.

The defense has yet to file its sentencing arguments, according to The Associated Press.

Jefferson's corruption battle first made headlines back in 2005, when the FBI began investigating his financial activities for suspected corruption.

The "C Street House" was the residence of Senator John Ensign (R-NV) for years. The home has achieved notoriety for the wayward practices of some of its current and former inhabitants, including Ensign. Over the weekend, the Las Vegas Sun reported that Ensign has left the building:

Sen. John Ensign has moved out of the C Street house, the Christian home he shared with other elected officials on Capitol Hill that came under scrutiny for its residents’ beliefs and practices and their role in trying to end the Nevada Republican’s affair with a campaign staff member.

The red brick town house emerged this summer as the subject of political intrigue — not only as a pivotal location in Ensign’s affair with Cynthia Hampton, but also that of South Carolina Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, who sought guidance there as he wrestled with his own affair.

As fallout from Ensign’s affair continues with a preliminary Senate Ethics Committee investigation and talk of a possible criminal inquiry by the Justice Department, Ensign decided to move out, not wanting to draw further attention to his longtime home.

The House Ethics Committee has failed to police members of Congress for decades now. An effort to change the system resulted in creation of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). But, House Ethics doesn't like OCE. Why? Eliza Newlin Carney explains:

The ethics committee's real beef with the OCE, while cloaked in technical jargon, appears to boil down to two complaints: The OCE is being too transparent and too hard on members. Given the Standards Committee's long history of papering over and dropping ethics complaints, this should argue in favor of the OCE's work, not against it.

And while the leaked activity report conveys the initial impression of an ethics committee hard at work, that document dates to July -- which also means that the panel's been investigating dozens of lawmakers for several months with no action.

The committee recently announced that it will investigate alleged ethics violations by California Reps. Maxine Waters (D) and Laura Richardson (D), as recommended by the OCE. It's also busy with ongoing probes involving Reps. John Murtha, D-Pa., and Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., among dozens of others. All this should be more than enough to keep the ethics committee busy -- without wasting time sniping at the OCE for doing its job.

Unfortunately, the House Ethics Committee seems to think its job is protecting members, not policing them.

Yesterday, CREW asked why Wall Street firms are receiving H1N1 vaccines before at-risk groups are. That inquiry set off a firestorm. Here's the report from the Los Angeles Times:

Citizens' groups have criticized federal and state authorities in recent days for failing to distribute the vaccine fairly.

"Why is it that so many Americans have had to wait in line and then been denied the vaccine, and others can just walk in and get it?" said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "People might die because people at a lower risk got the vaccine instead. How does some rich 50-year-old banker at Goldman Sachs get a vaccine that a pregnant woman or a healthcare worker in Los Angeles can't get?"

New York City health officials have had to defend the distribution of H1N1 vaccines there after reports that Wall Street firms were among the first to receive shipments.

Vaccines are supposed to be directed to five priority groups: pregnant women, people ages 2 to 24, healthcare workers, caregivers of babies under 6 months old, and those ages 25 to 64 with chronic health conditions that put them at increased risk of complications from the flu.

And, this from BarbinMD at DailyKos:

Anyone else find it hard to believe that Citigroup and Goldman Sachs are employing 1,400 "pregnant women, infants and children, young adults up to 24 years old, and healthcare workers"?

Wall Street wins out over Main Street once again. Whoever made this decision should be fired. Now.

As if Congress would ever pass laws policing Congress without loopholes. That just doesn't happen -- and it didn't happen on the new travel laws:

Two years after Congress toughened ethics laws that prevent lobbyists and corporations from paying for members’ trips, lawmakers are still seeing the world courtesy of other outside groups.

 

Although the trips are permissible because the money doesn’t come directly from lobbyists or corporations, the walls can be very thin. Some of the nonprofit groups that sponsor member travel are themselves funded by corporate sponsors, and the conferences that members attend on the groups’ dime often put them in direct contact with representatives of the corporate sponsors.

Just because seven House members who sit on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee are facing an ethics investigation doesn't mean they've change the way they do business. This blurb from "Under the Influence" says much about how little Members of Congress are fazed by the ethics process:

"The disclosure that seven House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee members are being scrutinized for their ties to PMA Group, a now-defunct lobbying firm that raised money for lawmakers and won earmarks for clients, is not expected to have a chilling effect on negotiations to reach agreement on a final FY10 Defense spending bill," CongressDaily AM (subscription) reports. "According to analysts for watchdog groups that monitor the appropriations process, House-Senate discussions are probably too far along for negotiators to start weeding out earmarks."

The ethics report unintentionally released last week continues to generate interest and analysis. Over the weekend, the Washington Post examined the political implications:

After years of criticism that congressional lawmakers were reluctant to investigate their colleagues, the disclosure in recent days of a sensitive document from the House ethics committee offers the contradictory portrait of a panel actively pursuing a range of probes even as Democrats under scrutiny remain in positions of power.

The 22-page document revealed that the ethics committee, as of late July, was looking into the activities of at least 19 lawmakers, including reviews of home mortgages and interviews about corporate-backed trips for members of Congress to Caribbean resorts. Combined with the inquiries being conducted by a new ethics office, the document showed a far more robust set of investigations than previously revealed.

But the document also brings potential political peril for  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whose party claimed the majority in November 2006 after she promised to "drain the swamp" of corruption on Capitol Hill. Two and a half years into Pelosi's reign, more than 25 Democrats have been targeted for ethics reviews by the two ethics bodies, while just seven Republicans appeared to be under scrutiny, according to the document.

In response to today’s Washington Post story detailing ethics investigations into a number of members of Congress, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) executive director Melanie Sloan released the following statement:

We often wonder what, if anything, the House Ethics Committee does. Now, we know. But, we're not supposed to know. The Washington Post obtained a report from the Ethics Committee after it was unintentionally made available. The word from the Committee is that the report "was released by a low-level staffer." Here's some of what we learned:

The 22-page "Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report" gives brief summaries of ethics panel investigations of the conduct of 19 lawmakers and a few staff members. It also outlines the work of the new Office of Congressional Ethics, a quasi-independent body that initiates investigations and provides recommendations to the ethics committee. The document indicated that the office was reviewing the activities of 14 other lawmakers. Some were under review by both ethics bodies.

A broader inquiry

Ethics committee investigations are not uncommon. Most result in private letters that either exonerate or reprimand a member. In some rare instances, the censure is more severe.

Many of the broad outlines of the cases cited in the July document are known -- the committee announced over the summer that it was reviewing lawmakers with connections to the now-closed PMA Group, a lobbying firm. But the document indicates that the inquiry was broader than initially believed. It included a review of seven lawmakers on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee who have steered federal money to the firm's clients and have also received large campaign contributions.