Press Conference With House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)...

Federal News Service October 7, 2004 Thursday

HEADLINE: PRESS CONFERENCE WITH HOUSE MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI (D-CA); REPRESENTATIVE STENY HOYER (D-MD); REPRESENTATIVE HENRY WAXMAN (D-CA); REPRESENTATIVE JOHN SPRATT (D-SC); AND REPRESENTATIVE ROSA DELAURO (D-CT)

SUBJECT: ETHICS COMMITTEE REPORT ON HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER TOM DELAY (R-TX)

LOCATION: THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

REP. PELOSI: Good morning. I'm very pleased to be joined here by our full leadership team of the House Democrats, and we will also be joined by Congressman Henry Waxman, the ranking member of our Government Reform Committee.

The ethical cloud that has been hanging over the Capitol has burst. The repeated abuses of power by the Republican majority leader have earned him three rebukes by the ethics committee in a single week, bringing dishonor to the House of Representatives and placing a heavy burden on his fellow House Republicans.

This brings to four the number of times Mr. DeLay has been chastised by the ethics committee. This is a pattern of unethical behavior by a man determined to win at any cost. The record has demonstrated that he will abuse power whenever he deems necessary.

Mr. DeLay has been rebuked for an offer of a quid pro quo on the Medicare prescription drug bill, for misusing Federal Aviation Administration for political purposes, and for appearing to link political donations to legislation. An additional charge of violating Texas law prohibiting corporate political donations has been deferred pending action under the Texas grand jury and-according to the indictments of Mr. DeLay's close associates, two of his campaign employees and one consultant, and Mr. DeLay's contributors.

Mr. DeLay was earlier admonished by the ethics committee for threatening a trade association that had hired a Democratic lobbyist.

Mr. DeLay has insisted that these charges are merely partisan attacks. But the bipartisan ethics committee's unanimous conclusions have now forever put that lie to rest.

Mr. DeLay has proven himself to be ethically unfit to lead the party. The burden falls upon his fellow House Republicans. Republicans must answer: Do they want an ethically unfit person to be their majority leader, or do they want to remove the ethical cloud that hangs over the Capitol?

With that, I'm pleased to yield the floor to our distinguished Democratic Whip, Mr. Hoyer.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. PELOSI: Thank you, Mr. Hoyer.

As mentioned earlier, we're joined by the distinguished ranking member on the Government Reform Committee, Congressman Waxman of California.

REP. WAXMAN: Well, I'm joining the Democratic leadership in the House in this press conference because the Republican leadership in the House has tried to whitewash the corrupt-corruption charges against Tom DeLay.

Tom DeLay has allowed power to corrupt him. Most of the charges for which he's already been rebuked and for which he's still under investigation involve grabbing money, laundering it, using it to make his Republican clique more entrenched in power.

We already know, aside from these four rebukes by the ethics committee-unanimous Democratic and Republican vote-that he's under investigation in Texas. His close associates have been called before Senator McCain's committee, one of whom has taken the Fifth Amendment. The other is still hiding from a subpoena. Well, these are serious matters, but also, what is disgraceful is that he and his Republican cadre have allowed the House of Representatives, the people's house, to be corrupted as well, and these actions have brought discredit to this institution.

Let me point out this is how legislation is done today-bribes, threats, allegations of payoffs, concealment. That's the ethical climate in which the House operates. And that's just for one bill, the Medicare bill. Threats, offers of money-we used to call them bribes-concealing information the Congress was entitled to know because the information wouldn't suit their partisan purposes.

And there are other examples as well. The Republicans refuse to live up to their constitutional responsibility to do oversight. They don't want to look at what this administration is doing-in false intelligence, in misleading the American people about the reasons to go to war in Iraq, on the outing of the CIA agent, on the waste of money for Halliburton and the Iraqi contracts. Look at that compared to what they did when President Clinton was in power.

The Republicans are -- (cross talk) -- these are examples of what's happened legislatively. But what's also more telling is that Tom DeLay and his Republican friends have sold access and legislative favors for campaign money; he's brought retribution on groups that won't hire his friends to be lobbyists; and he wants to put people in place as lobbyists so he can get those groups to kick back money to the Republican Party. That's not new in American politics, but it is not something to be proud of.

The Republicans' response to this unanimous ethics committee vote has been absolutely remarkable. The speaker of the House said that he thinks Tom DeLay is an admirable person and that isn't it great that the charges that were brought against him were dismissed, and how unfortunate it was that the ethics committee acted in a partisan way-notwithstanding the fact the Republicans voted for the rebukes as well.

That's been the attitude of the speaker. Tom DeLay took the same point of view. No sense of contrition. No sense of remorse. No sense of accountability. And Tom Reynolds, who is the person in charge for the Republican members of the House to raise money for their campaigns, said, "Shame on Chris Bell for bringing these charges." Well, I say shame on the Republicans for staying silent for long, and now still denying what they've been doing.

It's time for Tom DeLay to go. This institution has a Republican majority. I think the Republicans can do better in finding a leader who will reach out and allow us to do our jobs in a nonpartisan, bipartisan, fair manner, and not let this institution become further corrupted.

REP. PELOSI: Thank you, Mr. Waxman.

In addition to the impact on policy that you mentioned, I wanted to go back to the prescription drug bill because that was recent and notorious in so many respects-abuse of power in keeping the clock open so long, a few allegations of quid pro quos that have been rebuked by the ethics committee.

But in addition to that, I want to mention that in terms of the indictment in Texas, what the DeLay forces did there was to give a criminal basis to the reapportionment in Texas and, therefore, Texas representation in the Congress of the United States. The court will decide who is to blame, but the money laundering took place and the redistricting occurred. And now members will come to Congress on the basis not of a legitimate-not on a legitimate basis, but in a criminal basis. And that's even before the Supreme Court looks at the Voting Rights Act.

With that, I know that our colleague would be pleased to take any questions.

Q Madame Leader, do you --

REP. PELOSI: Just a minute. Let me just tell you who's here. We're joined by our distinguished vice chair of the caucus, Jim Clyburn; our assistant minority leader, John Spratt-both of those gentleman from South Carolina; Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, the chair of our Steering Committee, from Connecticut; Congressman George Miller of California, chair of our Policy Committee. Any of them -- (off mike) -- to any questions.

Q Madame Leader, do you think that Tom DeLay should step down, and if so, why?

REP. PELOSI: Oh, I think that we've made the case that four rebukes by the ethics committee makes a person ethically unfit to be the leader of the party. But it's up to the party to see how ethically fit they are in choosing their leader.

And so I would call upon the Republicans to understand their responsibility to this House of Representatives and lift this ethical cloud from the Capitol.

Q (Off mike.)

REP. HOYER: Chuck, I think you've been in my office. I've been talking about the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct taking these matters under consideration for over 24 months. I'm pleased that they did. That is the proper avenue to have done so. And they found violations to have occurred and they have rebuked the member in question. So that I believe the proper process has been followed. Those questions were, in fact, raised and action has been taken.

Now as Leader Pelosi has indicated, as Mr. Waxman indicated, the Republicans have a decision to make. I quoted Mr. DeLay when he said we need to clean our own house for the sake of the institution. It's now time to focus on the actions that the Republican Party that leads this House, at least temporarily, deems appropriate to take.

REP. PELOSI: And I-please, go ahead.

REP. WAXMAN: I just want to say that we rely on the Ethics Committee to do an investigation. But I think the fact that the Ethics Committee has not done investigations on these charges that have been out there for so long, until one of our colleagues actually brought an official charge before them, indicates, I think, that the Ethics Committee has failed.

But there's another thing to remember. The rules were changed when the Republicans came to power to stop outside groups from even bringing in charges. And ironically enough, I think it's Tom DeLay's statement, he claims how these outside groups have tried to influence the committee. Well, they're not even allowed to bring to the attention of the Ethics Committee the charges. I think that rule ought to be changed. I think people ought to be able to bring information to the Ethics Committee. If it's not important, if it's not valid, if it's simply politically motivated, they ought to quickly state that and dismiss it.

But the ethics committee on its own should have been acting. It took one courageous member of Congress to bring the official charges, and they could no longer ignore the issue.

Q Mrs. Pelosi --

REP. PELOSI: Excuse me one second. I just want to acknowledge the arrival of our distinguished chair of the Democratic Caucus, who was in a markup. And thank you very much for -- (inaudible). Would you like to make a statement here, respond to --

REP. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NJ): (Off mike) -- whatever.

REP. PELOSI: Thank you. And --

Q Mrs. Pelosi, could you talk about the political prospects for Democrats in Texas, considering that key members -- (off mike) -- Stenholm -- (off mike) -- and how this case might color -- (off mike)?

REP. PELOSI: Well, I'd be happy to talk politics after we finish with the very important ethics matters that we have here, only-except to the end of your question just say that the criminal redistricting of Texas certainly has made a difference and created again, as I said, a criminal basis for representation in the Congress, and that's a shame. They're not only undermining an ethical standard of the House. They're undermining our democracy. I'll talk about what the prospects are in Texas after we've finished with other questions that relate directly to what we're talking about.

Q (Off mike) -- as you've mentioned, is a criminal case -- (off mike). Did the ethics committee not do -- (off mike) -- do you think, or --

REP. PELOSI: Well, I think what the ethics committee did --

Q (Off mike.)

REP. PELOSI: We see-I think we see last week and this week what they did is what they could come to bipartisan consensus on. But you just have to speak to them about their inner workings. That's-where they came to this conclusion.

REP. MENENDEZ: The most disturbing part of your question is that both Congressman DeLay, who has now been rebuked four different times for bringing dishonor to the House, for abuse of power, for stepping over the lines of ethical conduct in this House, has suggested that nothing really transpired in the ethics committee. But worse than that, Speaker Hastert, as spokesman for the Republican Caucus, has suggested that all of these charges were dismissed and nothing really happened there.

These were unanimous votes in the ethics committee to admonish him for his behavior, as transgressing the ethical standards of this institution. You now have the speaker of the House of Representatives becoming an enabler of abusive behavior that is habitual, that is chronic, and that is ongoing on a daily basis in corrupting the legislative process by which the will of the House can work its will. I think that's a very dangerous situation for this country.

When you have these kinds of actions-and every one of you know how difficult it is for the ethics committee to take up these charges against one of our colleagues. But when they do, it's a serious matter. And when they admonish you-and yes, there's another range of behaviors, and we don't know the extent of the investigation; we're not privy to that-but when they do, it's a very serious matter for that member and his constituencies.

But when the speaker jumps in on top of that to suggest that there's nothing wrong with this behavior and there was no action taken by the committee, he's an enabler of this corrupting behavior by the majority leader of the Republican Party.

Q (Off mike.)

REP. PELOSI: As one who dedicated seven years of my life downstairs to the ethics committee work, I take it very seriously and consider it a major responsibility of each member of Congress to uphold a high ethical standard. Whether the committee did not have enough information-see, we really don't know, because we respect the ethics process. Whether they didn't have enough information until more recently or until Mr. Bell filed the complaint that initiated at least a staff inquiry, even though they hadn't gone to an investigation, begs the question is this working, is this working. Certainly the information that was in the public domain warranted some action on the part of the ethics committee long before Chris Bell took his action.

Q (Off mike.)

REP. PELOSI: No, I don't. I don't know if they would have. But they hadn't. They hadn't.

REP. HOYER: Let me make a comment. I've indicated to Mr. Babington that I've been raising this issue for two years. Not only with that, with respect to the Nick Smith allegation that he was offered a bribe on the floor of the House of Representatives in return for his vote on the Medicare bill, you perhaps will recall I wrote a letter to the speaker-because he is the person, elected by all the House, responsible for protecting the integrity and the democratic processes of this House-and urged him to talk to the ethics committee, not on the term of substantive charges, but in terms of their responsibility to undertake a thorough investigation of allegations that impugn the integrity of the House and, much more importantly, undermine the democratic processes (of considering ?) the people's business. That was not done. Unfortunately, Mr. Bell had to file a complaint in order for that to happen.

Now in the other case that I raised so pointedly, the chairman of the ethics committee originally said, no, we're not going to look at that. Then two weeks later he said, well, we've already undertaken our investigation. So that the answer to your question is the ethics committee has a very important responsibility.

If it does not pursue its responsibility, there will be no other alternative but for members like a courageous member, Mr. Bell, to specifically raise charges and demand that they're looked at.

REP. PELOSI: You have to ask them when they began. But as far as the public domain, the information in public domain was concerned, it was not apparent-or they made no announcement that they were looking into it before this --

Mr. Waxman wants to add something.

REP. WAXMAN: I don't want to be too harsh on the ethics committee because I don't know what was going on. They might have been doing some investigation, but it's hard for an ethics committee made up of members of the House to sit in judgment on their colleagues. That's why when the ethics committee does act, you have to take it very seriously, because they ordinarily don't want to do this. But if you remember, the Republicans demanded a special counsel for that reason to look into the charges against Jim Wright, and as I recall, the charges were that he was making some money on the sale of a book and lobbyists were buying the book and he was making some money. So they demanded a special counsel on that.

If you look at the charges against Tom DeLay, no one's asked for a special counsel. The ethics committee could have decided to do that but no one seems to ask for it. There's a problem to rely on the ethics committee alone. There has to be some sensitivity by the leaders in this institution that there are lines over which they cannot cross in their ethical behavior and they shouldn't allow their colleagues to do that. And if you look at the statements from the Republicans today over the serious unanimous actions of the ethics committee calling Tom DeLay to task, because I'm sure that was all they could get a consensus to do, they show no regret, no remorse, no contrition.

Q Does everyone on the stage, could everyone on the stage stand the same sort of scrutiny?

REP. PELOSI: Certainly. No question.

Q Can we just take -- (off mike)?

REP. PELOSI: Sure.

Q-a fundraising event. People who give more money have special access. Is that not true?

REP. PELOSI: You don't have-that's not the point. This is-we're talking about a high ethical standard when the reality --

Q Right, but there are several-Mr. Hoyer, you're a whip --

REP. WAXMAN: Can I jump in on this?

Q Please.

REP. WAXMAN: I mean, look at this Medicare bill. It wasn't that they-just simply did what he could as the Republican leader to get another vote, which they desperately needed. They held the vote open for the longest time. And while that Medicare bill was pending, the chairman of the Commerce Committee was negotiating to become the representative of the pharmaceutical industry trade association. The head of the CMS for the administration was negotiating to become a lobbyist representing the pharmaceutical industry. And what happened in the legislation? The pharmaceutical industry does not have to face any tough bargaining for lower prices.

The insurance industry came out like huge winners. The seniors lost out on that bill.

But what I'm pointing out is this isn't simply they had a fund- raiser and somebody contributed and they got a favor. They had special access. They had people with conflicts of interest. These are things the ethics committee didn't even deal with, and it's only the tip of the iceberg.

REP. PELOSI: And we're talking about an accumulation of acts as well.

Yes?

Q Ms. Pelsoi -- (off mike) -- what other options would the committee have had? (Off mike.)

REP. PELOSI: Well, you have an evenly divided committee, as is the design. And the committee could have dismissed, which it did not, contrary to any statements of the speaker and the many times he or Mr. DeLay say it, they did not dismiss the charges. It could have called for a special counsel. They could have proceeded with an investigative subcommittee to pursue-to further investigate the charges, and they could have called for a special counsel to be part of that. They could come to bipartisan agreement on the course of action they took. Further questions regarding why they came to that conclusion would have to be reserved to them. But just in terms of the rules --

Q Would a formal reprimand be -- (off mike)?

REP. PELOSI: No, formal reprimand-that would have been above that, yeah. But let me say this. I think they're very clear in here that the committee looked to not only the individual actions, but it chastised the leader in their letter and said that the cumulation of these charges can add to a claim of -- (aside) -- what's the word?

REP. : Three strikes and you're out.

REP. PELOSI: What's the word? File a complaint. A complaint. "In view of the number of instances to date in which this committee has found it necessary to comment on the conduct in which you have engaged, it is clearly necessary for you to temper your future actions to assure that you are in full compliance at all times with the applicable House rules and standard of conduct. We remind you that the House Code of Official Conduct provides the committee with the authority to deal with any given act or accumulation of acts which in the judgment of the committee are severe enough to reflect discredit on the Congress."

They said that Nick Smith, in exaggerating what was offered to him, came close to bringing discredit to the House. How much closer is Tom DeLay? Yet the committee made a decision not to go that place, pending the actions of the grand jury in Texas.

Q (Off mike.)

REP. PELOSI: I believe that you should address that question to the ethics committee.

Q Well, based on what you were saying before, do you think that Tom DeLay should step down -- (off mike)?

REP. HOYER (?): I think he certainly ought to step aside as leader at this point in time because I think his credibility has been undermined by these findings. And not only that, they took an additional charge under consideration pending the criminal charges disposition in the state of Texas.

Let me respond to the "everybody does it" assertion. Everybody doesn't do it. And I ask you not to ask us, you go and talk to people on K Street, anonymously, and ask them whether anybody else does this-Democrat or Republican. You ask them whether Democrats told them to fire people because they weren't of their party. The "everybody else" defense does not wash.

REP. PELOSI: And as the committee said, leaders have a special responsibility in the House for a high ethical standard.

Do my colleagues -- (off mike)? Mr. Spratt.

REP. SPRATT: There are a lot of worrisome aspects of this, but one is the response from Mr. DeLay himself, his statement on "the unanimous dismissal of Bell's complaint"-his characterization. Rather than accept the action of the committee and assure his colleagues that he is making amends, he mischaracterizes the very action of them. Rather than contrition, there's contempt. And rather than assurance that this admonition will have some effect, there's no assurance at all it will have any lasting effect on the pattern of behavior that has been the subject of this committee's investigation.

REP. DELAURO: May I just make a statement?

REP. PELOSI: Yes, please.

REP. DELAURO: All of you out there, and I think the country, have commented over these last months that what is wrong with this Congress; Democrats and Republicans can't come together on any issue that faces the American people. It is stunning in the very highly politically charged atmosphere of this country today, but an evenly divided country-Democrats, Republicans-that the men and the women on the ethics committee-even, 5 and 5, Democrats and Republicans-concluded, after looking at this information, that they in fact should admonish the majority leader of the House of Representatives.

Henry Waxman pointed out that was not an easy decision. But Democrats and Republicans came together to say: wrongdoing; discredits the House of Representatives; violates the trust that people have put in you to represent their interests; thwarting legislation; threatening other members.

Everyone comes here charged with doing what they believe in the best interest of the people that they represent. No one-not the majority leader, not the speaker of the House, not the minority leader-has a right to threaten me or anyone else in this body about what they feel is the right thing to do on behalf of their constituents. If you take that one instance, courageous men and women in the last few weeks have said, not once-twice, three times and over the course of time four times-wrongdoing, you discredit the House of Representatives.

And the Republican leadership has to take that into consideration to see whether or not this is an individual who ought to represent this body. And they did it on a bipartisan basis in some of the most politically charged environments that we have ever seen in Washington, D.C., and in the nation.

Q (Off mike.)

REP. PELOSI: Someone who hasn't had a question. (Inaudible.)

Q (Off mike.)

REP. PELOSI: No, it doesn't-well, the credence springs-the credibility of the judgment on their behavior springs from a bipartisan, unanimous vote of the ethics committee, not once-twice, three times, four times. The idea that it is political is so patently cheap on the part of Tom DeLay to say, that I would think that you would reject it out of hand.

But the fact is that a high ethical standard is important because we are the Congress of the United Sates of America. It's important because the power of our example on how we conduct the people's business is an example to the world. It is important because we have the people's trust and we must honor it. But when we see behavior that could be characterized as corruption, cheating seniors of their prescription drug benefit, cheating minorities of their representation in Congress because of violations of the Voters' Rights Act, which is before the Supreme Court of the United States, because of criminal conduct in the state of Texas, which will have an impact on public policy, then we have to speak out on that.

It doesn't lend credence to anything, except that they did-the ethics committee confirmed that the behavior that was suspected actually happened and that it shouldn't happen again.

Q Can I just go back to -- (off mike)? (Off mike.)

REP. PELOSI: Of course.

Q (Off mike.)

REP. PELOSI: Right.

Q So if you have -- (off mike) --

REP. PELOSI: Right.

Q-they have -- (off mike) -- who are interested in legislation and they mention legislation, what-how is that different from --

REP. PELOSI: Let me just make one statement about the Republicans. Their greed will be their downfall. Anyone who has a critical eye about what is appropriate behavior will know that there is abuse of power here. There is behavior that borders on corruption. If not, we'll see what the Texas courts say about Mr. DeLay's connection to that corruption. And the court-the committee has deferred that.

But a high ethical standard is our responsibility. The leader of the Republican Party abused power in this House in every way, including how money is-changes hands around here and in Texas. And if the Republicans in the House Representatives consider that an appropriate ethical standard, then they should answer for that to the American people.

We beg to differ. Thank you very much.