CREW wants House Office of Congress/DOJ to investigate Rep. Harmon

[BlueJessamine]

CREW wants House Office of Cong. Ethics and DOJ's Office of Prof. Responsibility to investigate Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA)

From Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Today, CREW asked the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) after Congressional Quarterly reported that a tape exists in which Rep. Harman offers to influence a Justice Department investigation into two former American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) employees in exchange for AIPAC’s help in securing her the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. CREW also asked the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate why the case against Rep. Harman was dropped. Our complaint can be found here.

Rep. Harman may have committed bribery and may have violated House rules prohibiting members from engaging in ex parte communications with executive or independent agency officials on the merits of matters under their formal consideration; failure to uphold the Code of Ethics for Government Service, and acting in a manner that does not reflect creditably on the House.

CREW asked OPR to investigate whether the Department of Justice dropped the investigation into Rep. Harman based on political considerations, rather than a lack of evidence, as has previously been reported.

When we sent our requests for these investigations, CREW's Melanie Sloan said:

If Rep. Harman agreed to try to influence an ongoing criminal investigation in return for help securing a committee chairmanship, her conduct not only violates federal law and House rules, but also her oath to uphold the Constitution. As plum a position as the chair of the Intelligence Committee may be, the political gamesmanship necessary to win it must stop well before the grand jury’s door. This whole sorry episode is also yet another example – as if we needed any more – of the depths to which the Bush Justice Department was willing to sink to advance its political agenda.

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/38993