The House Ethics Committee is moving toward a full-scale investigation of Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.), who has been under scrutiny for months over allegations that her staff engaged in banned political activities while on government time, according to several sources close to the matter.
Ethics Committee staffers have been digging into the claims against Richardson since last year as part of a ?preliminary inquiry? by the panel, and they have been interviewing current and former Richardson aides. The investigators are looking into allegations that Richardson and some of her most senior staffers pressured other aides to work on her reelection campaign or be fired, according to these sources and news reports. Staffers on the congressional payroll are banned from working on political campaigns during official time, and no House resources can be used for campaign-related activities, according to House rules and federal statute.
Continue ReadingIf the Ethics Committee were to create an special investigative subcommittee to oversee the Richardson case, it would dramatically raise the legal and political stakes for the three-term California Democrat.
Richardson?s campaign committee is already hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, including more than $125,000 owed to three law firms, and she faces a potential three-way Democratic primary fight against Rep. Janice Hahn and California Assemblyman Isadore Hall in a newly redrawn congressional district.
Such a move would also mean that another African-American Democrat is under investigation by the secretive Ethics Committee, a sore spot for many black lawmakers. Reps. Maxine Waters of California; Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois; and Gregory Meeks of New York are all currently under investigation, according to the panel?s press statements.
Richardson?s office did not return calls seeking comment. The Ethics Committee also declined to comment.
The 49-year-old Richardson has been under ethics scrutiny almost continually since winning an August 2007 special election to replace her onetime boss, the late Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald.
A Sacramento home that Richardson bought that year went into foreclosure in 2008, the third home on which Richardson has missed mortgage payments. The bank that held the Sacramento mortgage, Washington Mutual, then sold the home to a real estate investor.
But Washington Mutual later took the home back and returned it to Richardson and modified her mortgage. Following a lawsuit, Washington Mutual reached a settlement with the investor who had purchased the home.
The Office of Congressional Ethics and the House Ethics Committee both investigated the incident. The Ethics Committee ruled in July 2010 that Richardson ?did not knowingly violate? any ethics rules in the case.
In November 2010, just four months after the mortgage controversy was resolved, the Los Angeles Wave, a community newspaper, reported that Ethics Committee staffers were looking into allegations that Richardson had forced her official staff to work for her reelection campaign while on official time or lose their jobs, a potential ethical and statutory violation.
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