posted October 30, 2009 08:18 AM         

Other entities rely on a separate and impartial probe by investigators without affiliations or vested interest.
It has always amused me when congress probes itself...

quote:

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The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer.

The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.

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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.

And it would seem that with this 'leak' [intentional or not] the focus is on keeping the sanctity of the investigation who and the what under wraps, and paramount. At least that is the WP report flavor. Understandable in legal terms...

quote:

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File-sharing

The committee's review of investigations became available on file-sharing networks because of a junior staff member's use of the software while working from home, Lofgren and Bonner said in a statement issued Thursday night. The staffer was fired, a congressional aide said.

The committee "is taking all appropriate steps to deal with this issue," they said, noting that neither the committee nor the House's information systems were breached in any way.

"Peer-to-peer" technology has previously caused inadvertent breaches of sensitive financial, defense-related and personal data from government and commercial networks, and it is prohibited on House networks.

House administration rules require that if a lawmaker or staff member takes work home, "all users of House sensitive information must protect the confidentiality of sensitive information" from unauthorized disclosure.

Leo Wise, chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics, declined to comment, citing office policy against confirming or denying the existence of investigations. A Justice Department spokeswoman also declined to comment, citing a similar policy.

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Current list of congressmen under investigation as listed on Congresspedia~ 8/09
* 1 Senators
o 1.1 Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.)
o 1.2 Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.)
o 1.3 Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)
* 2 Representatives
o 2.1 Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.)
o 2.2 Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.)
o 2.3 Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.)
o 2.4 Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)
o 2.5 Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.)
o 2.6 Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.)
o 2.7 Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.)
o 2.8 Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.V.)
o 2.9 Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.)
o 2.10 Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.)
o 2.11 Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska)
* 3 Former members of Congress
o 3.1 Former Rep. Bob Beauprez (R-Colo.)
o 3.2 Former Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.)
o 3.3 Former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.)
o 3.4 Former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas)
o 3.5 Former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.)
o 3.6 Former Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.)
o 3.7 Former Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.)
o 3.8 Former Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio)
o 3.9 Former Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.)
* 4 Past investigations into members of Congress

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/29/AR20 09102904597_2.html?sid=ST2009102904609

THIS from Feb 09- http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Members_of_Congress_under_investigation

Too bad Joel [I once was a republican] Lieberman is not on the list.

posted October 30, 2009 06:53 PM         

Just for your information, Lieberman is no longer a demoscat congressman. He won reelection...handily I might add, running as an independent.

I too can think of some members of congress whose names should have been on that list. The name which most should have been at the top of any list of the unethical is Charles Rangel, demoscat Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee which writes the tax laws.

Mr. Rangel, failed to report income from off shore investments and falsified his income statement to the Congress.

In short, Rangel committed Income Tax Evasion, a federal felony offense. But Rangel is in good company with O'Bomber nominees/appointees...such as Treasury Sec Timothy Geithner, who also committed the federal felony offense of Income Tax Evasion.

Strange isn't it how they're both still sitting in their federal offices with no prosecution.

But perhaps not so strange when one realizes the Attorney General of the United States is Eric Holder. Eric Holder was the bag man...money carrier...for the last minute Clinton Presidential pardon of Marc Rich in the Cash of Pardons scandal in the last days of the Clintonista administration.

Congressional ethics report leaks, revealing names
Oct 30 01:45 PM US/Eastern
By LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Internal investigations into the conduct of over two dozen House members were exposed in an extraordinary, Internet-era breach involving the secretive process by which Congress polices lawmaker ethics.
Revelations of the mostly preliminary inquiries by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct—also known as the Ethics committee—and a panel that refers cases to it shook the chamber as lawmakers were immersed in a series of scheduled votes Thursday.

The panel announced that it was investigating two California Democrats—Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson—even as its embarrassed leaders took pains to explain that several other lawmakers' names should not have been revealed and they may have done nothing wrong.

The committee said it was investigating whether Waters used her influence to help a bank in which her husband owned stock, and whether the couple benefited as a result. Separately, the panel is looking into whether Richardson failed to disclose required information on her financial disclosure forms and received special treatment from a lender.

Ethics chairwoman Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., went to the House floor to announce that a confidential weekly report of the committee from July had leaked out in a case of "cyber-hacking."

A committee statement said that its security was breached through "peer to peer file sharing software" used by a junior employee who was working from home. The employee was fired.

The fired employee was allowed to work on the document at home but was responsible for keeping it secure, said a House staff member with knowledge of the events, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss it.

The employee didn't realize that the file saved on a hard drive could be downloaded to another computer using the same file sharing software, according to the staffer. He said there is no indication that the individual accessing the document was looking for ethics committee material.

The July report contains a summary of the committee's work at the time, but Lofgren said no inferences should be made about anyone whose name is mentioned.

The committee typically makes a public announcement about its activities only when it begins an investigation of potential rule-breaking, which is conducted by an investigative subcommittee whose members also are made public.

However, the weekly reports include a summary of the committee's work at an earlier stage, when its members and staff scrutinize lawmakers to see whether an investigation is warranted.

The Washington Post reported in its online edition Thursday that the document was disclosed on a publicly accessible computer network and made available to the newspaper by a source familiar with such networks.

The Post reported that more than 30 lawmakers and a few staff members were under scrutiny, including nearly half the members of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

The previously disclosed inquiry involves lawmakers who steered appropriations to clients of a now-defunct lobbying firm and received campaign contributions from the firm and its clients.

The names included three lawmakers previously identified in the inquiry: the chairman of the defense subcommittee, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.; and Reps. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., and James Moran, D-Va.

The Post said others whose names were in the report included Reps. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., and Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan.

The committee, however, has not announced an investigation of any of these lawmakers.

Waters is the No. 3 Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee and chairwoman of its subcommittee on housing. She has been an influential voice in the committee's work to overhaul financial regulations.

Waters came under scrutiny after former Treasury Department officials said she helped arrange a meeting between regulators and executives at OneUnited Bank last year without mentioning her husband's financial ties to the institution.

Her husband, Sidney Williams, holds at least $250,000 in the bank's stock and previously had served on its board. Waters' spokesman, Michael Levin, said Williams was no longer on the board when the meeting was arranged.

Waters has said the National Bankers Association, a trade group, requested the meeting. She defended her role in assisting minority-owned banks in the midst of the nation's financial meltdown and dismissed suggestions she used her influence to steer government aid to the bank.

"I am confident that as the investigation moves forward the panel will discover that there are no facts to support allegations that I have acted improperly," Waters said in a statement.

The committee unanimously voted to establish an investigative subcommittee to gather evidence and determine whether Waters violated standards of conduct.

The committee said it would investigate "alleged communications and activities with, or on behalf of, the National Bankers Association or OneUnited Bank" and "the benefit, if any, Rep. Waters or her husband received as a result."

The committee also voted unanimously to investigate whether Richardson violated House rules, its Code of Conduct or the Ethics in Government Act by failing to disclose property, income and liabilities on her financial disclosure forms.

The investigation also will determine whether Richardson received an impermissible gift or preferential treatment from a lender, "relating to the foreclosure, recission of the foreclosure sale or loan modification agreement" for her Sacramento, Calif., property.

Richardson said she has been subjected to "premature judgments, speculation and baseless distractions that will finally be addressed in a fair, unbiased, bipartisan evaluation of the facts."

"Like 4.3 million Americans in the last year who faced financial problems because of a personal crisis like a divorce, death in the family, unexpected job and living changes and an erroneous property sale, all of which I have experienced in the span of slightly over a year, I have worked to resolve a personal financial situation," she said in a statement.