Common Cause will soon be releasing our report detailing the reasons the Ethics Committee should retain an outside counsel for any investigation of Tom DeLay. We sent a letter to the committee this afternoon along with Public Campaign, Public Citizen, and U S Public Interest Research Group, urging them to appoint an independent, outside counsel. Here is a quick list of the reasons why any investigation of DeLay has to be conducted by an outside counsel if it is going to be publicly credible:
There is strong precedent for appointing outside counsel in cases involving members of the leadership, including the investigations of former Speakers Jim Wright (D-TX) and Newt Gingrich (R-TX);
DeLay's role as a powerful member of the House leadership with a web of connections to his colleagues through campaign money and political favors makes a fair and credible investigation difficult to achieve;
The bitter partisan fight sparked by the weakening of the ethics rules and the ouster of the ethics committee chair has undermined the credibility of any investigation carried out by the committee;
The ouster of three members of the committee and the firing of senior staff and a continuing controversy over staffing has left the committee without the capacity for such a critical and difficult investigation.
Not only should the Ethics Committee hire and independent, outside counsel, but it should be one whose investigation is not limited in scope, authority or independence. Overly restricting the work of the special counsel will hurt the public credibility of the investigation. In 1988, during the Jim Wright investigation, Representative Newt Gingrich expressed strong support for a special counsel with full independence to conduct a thorough investigation. According to a press advisory released from Gingrich's office in 1988:
Congressman Newt Gingrich (R-GA) today insisted that the House Ethics Committee give the special counsel appointed to investigate House Speaker Jim Wright the independence necessary to do a thorough and complete job. Discouraged by several news reports that special counsel Richard Phelan would be restricted in the scope of his investigation, Gingrich took a series of actions including writing to House Ethics Committee Chairman Julian Dixon (D-CA), forwarding the letter to his colleagues in the House, and speaking on the House floor on the need for a truly independent counsel with full leeway in pursuing the investigation.
See some other
familiar names of those who have supported appointing an independent counsel.
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