Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif., newly under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegedly pressuring her government aides to work for her campaign, charged Friday that she has been subjected to added scrutiny because she is black and a woman.
Richardson said the ethics panel, which announced the investigation on Friday, is “unjustly” targeting her, while it has ignored other allegations of wrongdoing by many of her colleagues who are white men.
This is the second ethics inquiry into Richardson, who was first elected in 2007. The previous investigation surrounded Richardson’s involvement with a bank that stopped the sale of a foreclosed home she once owned in Sacramento. She was cleared of wrongdoing in that case.
Richardson attacked the ethics panel for its latest inquiry. In a statement, she vowed to pursue “whether the Ethics Committee has engaged in discriminatory conduct in pursuing two investigations against me while simultaneously failing to apply the same standards to or take the same actions against other Members—of whom the overwhelming majority are white males."
Richardson predicted that when “all the facts” are gathered the investigation will “conclude positively” for her.
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