03-16-2005
ETHICS - Bush Lends DeLaySupport; Hastert Defends Rules ChangesKeith Koffler and Susan Davis, with John Stanton contributing
© National Journal Group, Inc.
President Bush today expressed his support for House Majority Leader DeLay amid a recent barrage of news stories concerning allegations of ethical misbehavior, while House Speaker Hastert defended a series of rules changes that critics say were intended to shield DeLay. During a White House news conference, Bush appeared to express an unequivocal endorsement of DeLay, clearly indicating he expects the majority leader to stay in power. "I have confidence in Tom DeLay's leadership, and I have confidence in Tom DeLay," he said. "We've worked closely with Tom DeLay and the leaders in the House to get a lot done during the last four years, and I'm looking forward to working with him to get a lot done during the next four years."
Hastert, meanwhile, defended three rules changes to the House ethics process during the weekly Republican Conference meeting. "Basically what I said, first of all, is that we want to make sure all members of this Congress, in the House of Representatives, have regular order to protect their rights," Hastert told reporters following the meeting of House Republicans. "And [secondly,] if they go forward into a situation where they're going to go through an investigation it has to be at least a majority of the Ethics Committee that does that. And thirdly, we think that every member ought to have the right to choose their own counsel and not have the Ethics Committee dictate who that counsel can or can't be."
The House is divided largely along partisan lines over the GOP-backed changes that critics argue will make it harder for the Ethics panel to conduct fair investigations. The division has also caused a shutdown of the Ethics panel after the committee failed to approve committee rules last week. Ethics ranking member Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., is circulating a resolution to repeal the Ethics rule changes and to re-examine the rules with a bipartisan taskforce. Hastert, so far, has shown no interest in taking up the resolution. "Very simply those are the things that we put forward, those are the things that apparently the other party are upset with and that's where we're at," he said.
Also today, Senate Indian Affairs Chairman McCain ruled out the possibility of asking members of the House or Senate to testify before the committee as part of its investigation of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. McCain is looking into allegations that Abramoff defrauded millions of dollars from six Indian tribes. Several current lawmakers -- including DeLay and Sen. David Vitter, R-La. -- have been linked to Abramoff in recent weeks. Although Democrats have privately argued that Congress should launch a full investigation into Abramoff's ties to these lawmakers, McCain today made it clear he would not be the one to do so. "The Indian Affairs Committee has no business investigating members of Congress. But we will find where the money is," McCain said.
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