CREW accuses Schmidt of lying to ethics investigators

A liberal ethics watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio), claiming she lied during an investigation into whether she had improperly received free legal service. But Schmidt’s office says that the complaint is an unfounded attack by political opponents and that the congresswoman has already been cleared of wrongdoing.

Schmidt was pursuing a defamation lawsuit against a Democratic opponent in the 2008 election when she ordered by the House Ethics Committee to repay the Turkish-American Legal Defense Fund $500,000 after investigators concluded that her lawyers had misled her
about who was paying for the legal services.

{mosads}But she avoided additional sanctions after maintaining that she did not know that an outside lobbying group was covering her expenses. Schmidt argued that she had not paid the cost for legal fees because she had not yet received a bill and did not realize that they had been covered in violation of House rules.

But the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) accused the congresswoman of lying during that investigation after one of her lawyers said that Schmidt had been fully informed of the arrangement.

“If Rep. Schmidt lied to investigators for the OCE and the House Ethics Committee, she may have committed a crime,” said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan in a statement. “Her argument sounds remarkably like that made by the late Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), who claimed he hadn’t paid contractors who worked on his house because he never received a bill. The difference is Sen. Stevens was indicted; Rep. Schmidt walked away.”

In the complaint, a version of which was also mailed to the FBI, Bruce Fein, a lawyer who represented the congresswoman, said that during a November 2008 meeting he “explained that TALDF’s legal services were provided at no charge to Representative Schmidt” and that “we stated that we would do this and would not charge them legal fees.”

The complaint also quotes the affidavit of Schmidt’s chief of staff, Barry Bennett, who said that he knew that Schmidt would not be charged for the legal services. But both statements were available to the Office of Ethics during the initial investigation into Schmidt’s involvement.

Still, CREW says this account undermines Schmidt’s defense, which is that she was unaware of how her lawyer’s services were being billed.

“While the inquiry into Rep. Schmidt’s failure to pay her legal bills is over, now the OCE should consider whether the congresswoman lied during the course of the investigation,” Sloan said.  “Government officials never learn. It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.”

But Schmidt’s office said that CREW was politically motivated, calling the charges “recycled” and “grandstanding.”

“Nobody should be surprised that a liberal group like CREW would recycle the ridiculous complaints of an obsessed former political opponent,” said Barrett J. Brunsman, communications director for Schmidt, in a statement. “Despite numerous investigations over the past several years, only one person has been found to have lied – and it wasn’t Congresswoman Schmidt.”

“That Democrat’s past claims have already been rejected by the House Ethics Committee, and this is nothing more than grandstanding by CREW. It would be laughable if not so pathetic,” Brunsman said.

Brunsman said that he believed Schmidt was targeted for her conservative voting record.

“This boils down to the fact that Jean Schmidt is one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress, and that infuriates the left-wing activists at CREW as well as her former opponent – who has twice been rejected by voters,” Brunsman said.
 

This post was updated at 2:20pm to include a statement from Schmidt’s office.