A confidential report of the House ethics committee, detailing inquiries into possible ethics violations by dozens of lawmakers and their staffers, has made its way into the
Washington Post this morning. The leak represents a rare opportunity to look at the deliberations of a committee that has been accustomed to operating in total privacy.
According to the report, the committee has interviewed Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and some of the people around him in regard to the ongoing investigation into information surrounding his finances and a trip he took to St. Martin. Rangel has been under fire for failing to pay taxes on assets and income, and for leaving information out of his personal financial disclosures.
According to the report, however, he isn't the only one who may have omitted information from his disclosures. Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) has been under scrutiny since 2006 for having failed to reveal portions of his stake in real estate. According to the Post, the ethics committee report seems to indicate that the Justice Department may have taken over that investigation. Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) may also have omitted "property, income and liabilities" from her disclosures, according to the Post.
Others named in the report include subjects of a previously-known investigation into lawmakers associated with a lobbying firm that broke up after its offices were raided by the FBI early this year. PMA Group has been the subject of a federal investigation into earmarks and "pay-to-play" activities.
The report was leaked to the Post after being left on a junior congressional staffer's personal computer while the staffer was working from home. The computer had file-sharing software installed on it, and so the report became publicly available to anyone who happened to stumble upon it.
