Independent Ethics Board Fires Back In Graves Dispute

Roll Call:

The Office of Congressional Ethics released a seven-page missive Tuesday refuting criticisms of its investigative process made by the House ethics committee in late October, and marking the public airing of tensions in the chamber’s two-tiered ethics process.

The Nov. 20 memorandum addresses the House ethics committee’s critique of an OCE investigation of Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), which the committee declared “fundamentally flawed” in an Oct. 29 report dismissing the inquiry. The memo also reiterates the OCE’s status as a quasi-independent House office, operating without oversight from the ethics committee...

The OCE, which had earlier refuted those allegations, reiterated its defense in Friday’s memorandum, and disputed charges that it “ignored” evidence provided by Graves.

The full letter from the Office of Congressional Ethics is online here.  In it, the OCE stands by its belief that Graves was out of line in the way he invited his wife’s business partner and friend to testify before the Small Business Committee, where he is the ranking Member.

The OCE Found a Substantial Reason to Believe that Representative Graves Violated House Standards of Conduct

The SOOC [Committee on Standards of Official Conduct] claims that the OCE "forwarded the matter to the Standards Committee for further review without finding a 'substantial reason to believe' that there was a violation of any relevant, substantive rule or other standard of conduct applicable to Representative Graves."

The OCE found that “there was a substantial reason to believe that an appearance of conflict of interest was created when Representative Graves invited Witness A, a friend of the Representative's who was invested in the same ethanol and biodiesel cooperative as his wife, to testify before the Committee on Small Business.” The OCE identified the relevant standard of conduct, by citing the Ethics Manual produced by the Standards Committee. It provides guidance to Members that “sponsoring legislation, advocating or participating in an action by a House committee or contacting an executive branch agency . . . entails a degree of advocacy above and beyond that involved in voting, and thus a Member's decision on whether to take any such action on a matter that may affect his or her personal financial interests require added circumspection.” The OCE also cited in its findings at least 14 instances where the appearance of conflict is addressed in the Ethics Manual.

The SOOC has never defined what constitutes a “standard of conduct.” The Board reasonably concluded, based on a reading of the plain text of the Ethics Manual, that the admonition to apply “added circumspection” when “participating in an action by a House committee” was a standard of conduct. Based on the state of the law at the time the Board made its decision, such a conclusion was reasonable. In fact, the SOOC publicly acknowledged and imposed a similar standard in its admonishment of Representative Tom DeLay in its letter to the Congressman dated October 6, 2004.

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