Here’s something to keep an eye on in the new Congress.
There’s convincing evidence out there that Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) unethically used his congressional staff to aid his re-election campaign. Will the House Ethics Committee do anything about it?
A couple of weeks ago, a reporter confronted Murphy with documents showing he’d violated ethics rules by having staffers work on his campaign. Murphy’s outraged response indicates how seriously he takes the charge: he snatched the paper away from a local reporter — with cameras rolling. After the election, he fired the whisteblowing staffer. She violated his office’s policy forbidding contact with the press, he said.
So here’s the question: Will the House ethics panel step in to investigate the matter? In the past two years, they have not initiated a probe of a single member who is not also the subject of a federal inquiry. Here’s their chance to become useful again.
