If you thought Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) would eventually cave to pressure and follow in the steps of Reps. Doolittle (R-CA) and Renzi (R-AZ) by stepping down from his important committee seats...think again. Lewis is holding fast:
Rep. Jerry Lewis will not leave his seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, despite a call for him to step down over the almost yearlong criminal investigation into his dealings with a prominent lobbying firm linked to disgraced former Rep. Randy Duke Cunningham, R-Rancho Santa Fe.
Describing the investigation as "trumped up," Lewis, R-Redlands, said during an interview this week in his Washington office that he has the backing of Republican leadership.
A federal grand jury issued subpoenas last May to a variety of agencies, cities, and counties seeking information about Lewis' ties to a lobbying firm. Then the investigation quieted down, and stayed under the radar until the recent raids on Reps. Doolittle and Renzi brought the issue of leadership and corruption back to the forefront.
Now, amid new calls for him to step down as ranking member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, Lewis is citing House Minority Leader John Boehner's (R-OH) support as his reason for not capitulating:
On the heels of yesterday's Roll Call editorial that wondered why there was no concrete rule regarding leadership roles for Members of Congress under criminal investigation, today's edition of The Hill takes a closer look at Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) has spent more than a year looking into Lewis's relationship with a lobbying firm and the millions of dollars in contracts its clients received from Congress. Lewis, the ranking member of the spending committee, has outlaid an estimated $900,000 on defense lawyers since the probe began, but the investigation has been quiet in recent months.
Lewis spokesman Jim Specht said Lewis's home has not been searched and that the California Republican has had no "direct contact" with DoJ officials...
...Lewis has received no letters, calls or other contact from the DoJ, Specht said. He added that Lewis's defense lawyers voluntarily have reached out to the DoJ.
Specht said he did not know why, with the case so quiet, Lewis has spent so much on attorney fees, referring the question to Lewis's lawyers.
That doesn't seem to make much sense to me - if the case is supposedly not going anywhere, what in the world is the point of almost a million dollars in legal defense expenses?
It's doubtful many of you have ever heard of the House Appropriation Committee's Surveys and Investigations team...I sure hadn't. But it exists, and is tasked with providing oversight of contracts and other appropriations processes. It used to be headed by Robert Pearre, appointed by then-Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA); last fall, Pearre effectively dismantled the unit by firing the majority of its staff without warning.
But it looks like the team is being put back together under new Chairman David Obey's (D-WI) watch - he's just replaced Pearre with his own deputy staff director, David Pomerantz:
A Democratic Appropriations staffer said that the team would be rebuilt, although it is unclear if it will end up larger or smaller than it was before the October firings. "It has to be driven by the oversight needs, and there's a lot of them," [a] staffer said. "S&I is going to be busy and we'll staff up to meet that."
One of the first things they'll reportedly do is complete the Hurricane Katrina probe that was derailed by the firings.
Common Blog
