GOP has no clue about ethics
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Republicans planned a big old fashioned shindig. The champagne may have been on ice. The party hats could’ve been about to be unboxed.
Republican members of the U.S. House were ready to party hearty. Except for one thing.
On the eve of the 115th Congress, Republicans collided headfirst into the “Trump-train.”
It wasn’t pretty. The 115th Congress officially got underway last Tuesday. But on Monday evening, House Republicans huddled, in private, to hash out new rules for the upcoming two-year session.
Within the usual house-rule gobbledygook, House members – feeling their oats – agreed to defang something called the Office of Congressional Ethics.
What’s the Office of Congressional Ethics? Well, I’ll tell you.
Let’s say you’re a member of the U.S. House of聽 Representatives. Let’s say you’re on the take. Let’s say you’ve been given gifts, travel or campaign funds illegally.
Anybody can contact the Office of Congressional Ethics and act as a whistleblower about those two Super Bowl tickets that mysteriously appeared on your desk.
The office could investigate the claim. And, if it determined that those Super Bowl tickets were really a kickback for a special favor, if could refer the matter to Committee on Ethics of the U.S. House of Representatives for further review.
The Office of Congressional Ethics is independent. But the Committee on Ethics is subjected to the forces of party politics.
Republicans, by a vote of 119-74, stripped the Office of Congressional Ethics of its independence. They did it without any debate, or any notice in advance.
Worse, it makes it impossible for whistleblowers to blow their whistles with anonymity. Oh my.
By late Monday night, word got out that Republicans had essentially gutted the Office of Congressional Ethics, and by a voice vote. That way, the names of the Republicans who approved the gutting wouldn’t be revealed.
Oh my, again.
By early Tuesday morning, there was a mad Republican dash to justify the move. It was already too late. The cable news networks were leading every newscast with it.
While Donald Trump had based much of his presidential campaign on “Draining the Swap,” his fellow Republicans had appeared to be flooding it even more – and for no apparent reason.
“I mean it’s the dumbest friggin’ thing I’ve ever heard,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. “That is not the message the house needs to send to the American people,” he added.
Graham wasn’t alone.
Another Republican, Rep. Rod Blum of Iowa seemed incredulous. “It’s a circular firing squad – our first day here and we’re passing around the handgun,” Blum said.
By mid-Tuesday morning, there were increasing reports that Republican House members were being inundated with calls from their angry constituents who’d taken Trump’s vows to “Drain the Swamp” seriously.
Keep in mind, the Office of Congressional Ethics has no bearing on the president. It only investigates suspected wrongdoings by House members.
But that didn’t stop the nation’s Chief Swamp Drainer from weighing in.
“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority,” tweeted Donald Trump.
But he wasn’t finished. He even issued something of an “order.”
“Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far great importance! #DTS (Drain the Swap)” he wrote.
That tweet was at 10:07 a.m. The Republicans called an emergency meeting at 10:50 a.m. One hour and 43 minutes after Trump’s tweet – at 11:50 a.m. – the Ethics Amendment was withdrawn.
Trump got credit, by some, for adding his two cents to a mighty embarrassing move by House Republicans.
Others blamed the outcry that had come from those angry private citizens.
And some Republicans claimed they knew they didn’t have the votes to pass the ethics rules change, so they dumped it.
It really doesn’t matter.
It had been a debacle that had caused some Republican House members, who’d reluctantly ridden the “Trump-train,” and made them victims of a Trump train-wreck.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net