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Watchdog asks Senate ethics panel for Vitter inquiry |
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By Elana Schor
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Posted: 07/19/07 03:23 PM [ET] |
A liberal-leaning watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) on Thursday, raising the prospect of an ethics committee inquiry into the conservative freshman’s entanglement with an alleged prostitution ring.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked the Senate ethics committee to investigate whether Vitter’s contacts with the escort service of the so-called “D.C. Madam” amount to “improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate,” in the parlance of the upper chamber’s ethics manual.
“Whether or not Sen. Vitter is ultimately adjudicated to have broken any criminal laws, the Senate may still discipline him for improper conduct as it has done for others in the past,” CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan, a former assistant U.S. attorney and Democratic aide, wrote in the complaint.
Senate rules, unlike those in the House, allow outside groups to file ethics complaints against members. CREW registered a win earlier this year when its ethics complaint against Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) regarding his involvement in the U.S. attorneys scandal sparked a preliminary inquiry from the ethics panel.
In a statement issued after the Domenici complaint, Ethics Chairwoman Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the ranking Republican, noted that a preliminary inquiry begins in response to any legitimate complaint.
The ethics complaint comes two days after Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a former Ethics chairman, was asked whether he would open a probe of Vitter’s actions. Reid noted that a complaint has to be filed before such an inquiry, so “we’ll have to wait and see what happens there.”
CREW’s complaint references allegations that Vitter not only patronized the Washington escort service but also a brothel in New Orleans, a charge the Louisiana lawmaker denied this week. Vitter’s office did not immediately return a request for comment on the ethics complaint.
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