[Infowarrior] - OT: 2017 politics: It begins

[Richard Forno]

House Republicans gut their own oversight

By Rachael Bade and John Bresnahan

01/02/17 07:56 PM EST

Updated 01/02/17 09:48 PM EST

In one of their first moves of the new Congress, House Republicans have voted to gut their own independent ethics watchdog — a huge blow to cheerleaders of congressional oversight and one that dismantles major reforms adopted after the Jack Abramoff scandal.

Monday's effort was led, in part, by lawmakers who have come under investigation in recent years.

Despite a warning from Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Republicans adopted a proposal by Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to put the Office of Congressional Ethics under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee.

The office currently has free rein, enabling investigators to pursue allegations and then recommend further action to the House Ethics Committee as they see fit.

Now, the office would be under the thumb of lawmakers themselves. The proposal also appears to limit the scope of the office’s work by barring them from considering anonymous tips against lawmakers. And it would stop the office from disclosing the findings of some of their investigations, as they currently do after the recommendations go to House Ethics.

President-elect Donald Trump ran on a platform of draining the swamp of an often all-too-cozy Washington D.C. Monday night’s moves go in the opposite direction, severely loosening oversight of lawmakers' potential  conflicts of interest, use of campaign money and other ethical matters.

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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/house-republicans-gut-their-own-oversight-233111