Maverick Traficant Faces Expulsion from Congress

Maverick Traficant faces expulsion from Congress

• Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 20 July 2002 02.23 BST

The maverick Ohio Democrat James A Traficant Jr is facing expulsion from the House of Representatives and jail on corruption and bribery charges.

The House will vote next week on a unanimous recommendation made yesterday by the 10-member House ethics committee that Mr. Traficant be expelled. Expulsion requires a two-thirds majority. If expelled, he would become only the second member of Congress to be removed in this way since the civil war.

In April, Mr. Traficant, 61, was convicted in a criminal trial of encouraging the destruction of evidence, soliciting bribes and filing false income tax returns. He is due to be sentenced on July 30 and could face seven years in jail.

He is appealing against the conviction and claiming that he is the victim of a vendetta and that witnesses gave false evidence only after being threatened by the FBI and the internal revenue service.

The colorful politician is renowned for an eccentric hairstyle that Don King would be proud of, and his website shows him whacking a plank of wood into his hand and the caption "Banging away in DC". In the past he has faced charges of Mafia involvement.

The eccentric former sheriff is not going down without a fight. "I've broke no laws," he told the committee. "If you expel me, I will go down in history as an expelled member ... But you know what, I have a very clear conscience. I am proud to be an American. I hate the government but I love America."

He claims that he is being victimized because he has a "big mouth" and has upset the establishment. Yesterday he told a press conference that he would not resign: "If I am to be expelled under these circumstances, then God save the republic." He has portrayed himself as the little guy fighting the establishment.

Mr. Traficant was first elected in 1984 after he had been acquitted in a high-profile trial of taking Mafia money. His defense was that he was involved in an undercover sting operation.

But he was convicted in April on 10 charges that he had tapped businessmen for bribes and favors in exchange for assisting them and had got members of his staff on the federal payroll to work on his farm and his boat. He was also convicted of taking part in the destruction of evidence against him.

In 1980, he spent three days in jail when he was a sheriff after he had refused to foreclose on the homes of unemployed people who were unable to continue their home payments. This won him his maverick reputation nationally and his local popularity. He has often been elected with record majorities.

The only other member of the House of Representatives expelled since the civil war was Michael Myers, a Pennsylvania Democrat who accepted money from undercover FBI agents posing as Arab sheikhs.

Ethics Panel Supports Reprimand of Gingrich

By John E. Yang and Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 18 1997; Page A01

The House ethics committee recommended last night that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) face an unprecedented reprimand from his colleagues and pay $300,000 in additional sanctions after concluding that his use of tax-deductible money for political purposes and inaccurate information supplied to investigators represented "intentional or . . . reckless" disregard of House rules.

The committee's 7 to 1 vote came after 5 1/2 hours of televised hearings and the release of a toughly worded report on the investigation by special counsel James M. Cole. The recommendation, which followed a week of partisan conflict that has split the House into warring camps, sets the stage for a resolution of this investigation into Gingrich's actions.

Gingrich earlier admitted he had violated House rules and was prepared to accept the committee's recommendation for punishment. If the full House votes as expected on Tuesday, Gingrich would become the first speaker to be reprimanded for his conduct and would begin his second term politically weakened and personally diminished.

"This is a tough penalty," Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.), chairman of the ethics panel, said after the vote. "I believe it is an appropriate penalty. It demonstrates that nobody is above the rules."

Cole said he had concluded that Gingrich had violated federal tax law and had lied to the ethics panel in an effort to force the committee to dismiss the complaint against him. He said the committee members were reluctant to go that far in their conclusions, but said they agreed Gingrich was either "reckless" or "intentional" in the way he conducted himself.

The hefty sanction imposed on Gingrich was described as a "cost assessment" and not a fine, and designed to reimburse the committee for prolonging the investigation. Cole said the $300,000 figure was "the product of a sense of the seriousness of the violation . . . tempered by reality" and was "needed to send a message."

Gingrich can pay the penalty out of campaign funds, if he chooses, but press secretary Lauren Maddox said he has not decided what to do. Gingrich's campaign committee has more than $1 million in cash, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Cole also said that while federal tax law contains arcane provisions, other provisions of the code are as clear as "headlines" in the newspaper. He said that the speaker should have acted far more cautiously with regard to federal tax law because there was such a "clear partisan intent" to activities financed with tax-deductible money.

"Mr. Gingrich ran a lot of very yellow lights," he said. "Orange lights. There were bells and whistles going off." Later Cole said, "He was taking risks . . . going right up to the edge."

Ethics committee rules say a reprimand is "appropriate for serious violations" of House rules, while a censure, second in severity only to expulsion, is appropriate for "more serious violations."

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company

Senate panel to Sen. Craig: You discredited the chamber

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate Ethics Committee issued a "letter of admonition" to Sen. Larry Craig on Wednesday in connection with his arrest in a Minneapolis airport sex sting last year. In the letter, the committee accused the Idaho Republican of improper conduct in the June arrest. His actions reflected "discreditably" on the chamber, the letter said.

The committee also criticized Craig for using more than $200,000 in campaign funds to pay legal fees related to his case and for flashing his Senate business card at the officer who arrested him. The letter said that move could be seen as an improper attempt to receive "special and favorable treatment."

Craig, 62, was arrested in an airport men's room in June after an undercover officer in an adjoining stall accused him of soliciting sex. Craig quietly pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge two months after his arrest without consulting a lawyer.

Craig released a statement Wednesday: "While I am disappointed and strongly disagree with the conclusions reached by the Senate Ethics Committee, from the outset I have encouraged the Committee to act in a timely fashion and they have done so. I will continue to serve the people of Idaho."

An Ethics Committee staff member told CNN that the committee stopped short of full adjudication hearings, which could have been either public or private. The staffer said that the committee also stopped short of recommending any further action to the full Senate, such as censure. The strongly worded admonition is not required to be read into the record on the Senate floor. But it cannot be appealed and should be taken seriously, the staffer said.

New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli received a similar admonishment in 2002 after an Ethics Committee probe into whether he had improperly accepted gifts from a campaign contributor. Torricelli gave up his re-election bid soon afterward.

When news of Craig's arrest emerged in September, the three-term senator denied the charges and tried to revoke his guilty plea. A state court judge rejected his motion, and Craig is appealing that decision.

Craig said he pleaded guilty without legal advice out of fear that the allegations would be made public at a time when a Boise, Idaho, newspaper was investigating longstanding rumors about his sexuality. Craig, who is married, denies he is gay.

The Ethics Committee criticized his appeal, saying his claims that he was coerced into pleading guilty and that he did not know what he was doing "do not appear credible." It called his effort to withdraw the guilty plea "an attempt to evade the legal consequences of an action freely undertaken by you."

"The conduct to which you pled guilty, together with your related and subsequent conduct as set forth above, constitutes improper conduct reflecting discreditably on the Senate," the letter states.

Craig also announced plans to resign after the arrest became public, but then reversed himself and decided to remain in office while he pursues his appeal. He is not seeking re-election in November.

The committee found Craig has spent $213,000 from campaign funds on legal and "public relations" fees on his case without its approval, and warned that any further use of campaign funds without that blessing would be considered "conduct demonstrating your continuing disregard of ethics requirements."