Friday, February 26, 2010

Ethics Committee Releases Report on Caribbean Trips, Exonerates Congressman Bennie Thompson among others

By Jennifer Yachnin

The House ethics committee released its 2,498-page report Friday ruling that two Caribbean trips involving six Members violated House rules — although it exonerated all but Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) of intentional wrongdoing — and disclosing hundreds of pages of receipts and other documents showing corporate sponsorship of the events.

The report follows the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct’s announcement Thursday night that after its investigation into travel sponsored by the Carib News Foundation in 2007 and 2008, it found that the trips violated House gift rules because of prohibitions on corporate contributions and that it had approved the trips based on “false and misleading information.”

The committee exonerated five of the six Members of wrongdoing — Reps. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Donald Payne (D-N.J.), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) and Del. Donna Christensen (D-Virgin Islands) — but admonished Rangel after ruling that his staff were aware that some of the funding came from prohibited sources, even if he himself did not know.

Roll Call

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