House ethics panel cites Jim McDermott for 1997 Newt phone leak.

[Eugene]

Monday, December 11, 2006 · Last updated 2:04 p.m. PT

Ethics panel says McDermott violated standards in taped-call case

By MATTHEW DALY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., violated House ethics committee
rules by giving reporters access to an illegally taped telephone call involving
House Republican leaders a decade ago, the ethics panel said Monday.

In a report released days after Congress adjourned, the ethics panel said that
McDermott, a former ranking member of the panel, failed to meet his obligations
as a committee leader.

-snip-

Full article: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WA_McDermott_Ethics.html

With Abramoff and MZM, the Ethics Committee was busy with this?
Goodbye and good riddance 109th Congress.

[Kagemusha]

1. Oh my god, after all this time. And I remember the incident...

This is just.. incredibly sad.

[maxsolomon]

2. oh, they've been on this for 10 years straight

trying to hound "bagdhad jim" out of congress by making the legal fees astronomical. this was their final petty salvo before REAL oversight begins with the 110th.

little do they know that the Washington 7th would elect Pol Pot before it would elect a Republican. Jim is safe as soon as the new congress is seated.

[BR_Parkway]

3. And no one did anything wrong in the Foley scandal - Contempt

of Congress shouldn't be a criminal charge, it should be the natural order until they prove themselves worthy of more than our contempt

[stillcool]

4. They have some chutzpah....

and so does the paper for not printing the colossal failure of the "Ethics" Committee to provide anything but back-door exits to felons and soon-to-be among them....

The ethics complaint stems from a tape recording made by a Florida couple, who gave it to McDermott in January 1997. The tape recorded then-Speaker Gingrich, R-Ga., in a December 1996 conference call with GOP leaders regarding a separate ethics investigation of Gingrich.

McDermott, then the ethics panel's top Democrat, leaked the tape to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The New York Times, which published stories on the case in January 1997.

Gingrich, who was heard on the call telling House Republicans how to react to the ethics charges against him, was later fined $300,000 and reprimanded by the House.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled against McDermott in a related civil case in March. The 2-1 opinion upheld a lower court ruling that McDermott had violated the rights of Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, who was heard on the 1996 call. Boehner was then a Gingrich lieutenant and now House majority leader.

[KoKo]

5. Isn't this charge left over from Repug Failed Congress? I don't believe

that our Dems will go after McDermott for this. Am I wrong?