Ryan defends move to gut ethics watchdog

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) defended the House GOP’s decision to weaken its independent ethics watchdog on Tuesday moments after President-elect Donald Trump questioned the move’s timing.

Ryan said he stressed to the incoming chairman of the House Ethics Committee, Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.), that the panel shouldn’t take the new rules to mean it can interfere with investigations conducted by the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).

“I have made clear to the new Chair of the House Ethics Committee that it is not to interfere with the Office’s investigations or prevent it from doing its job. All members of Congress are required to earn the public’s trust every single day, and this House will hold members accountable to the people,” Ryan said in a statement.

House GOP leaders called an emergency conference meeting shortly before noon to discuss the blowback to the proposed changes to OCE. 

{mosads}Ryan’s defense of the provision comes after he originally expressed opposition to it. The Speaker argued against House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte’s (R-Va.) proposal during the GOP conference meeting Monday night, according to a source in the room.

House Republicans are trying to manage a public relations fallout over a majority decision Monday night to gut the OCE’s powers.

Minutes before the release of Ryan’s statement, Trump questioned the timing of the decision to water down OCE on the first day of the new Congress in a series of tweets.

Goodlatte authored a measure adopted by the House GOP conference as part of its rules package for the new Congress that would put the OCE under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee.

The proposal also bars OCE from acting on anonymous tips, which ethics reform advocates warn would undermine whistleblowers. Goodlatte argued that the rules changes would ensure lawmakers’ due process rights.

The OCE was created in 2008 in response to a string of lawmaker ethics scandals to ensure that an outside, nonpartisan entity has the power to investigate wrongdoing by members of Congress.

The OCE has had free rein to pursue allegations against lawmakers and then make recommendations to the House Ethics Committee on whether it should pursue a formal probe. Only the House Ethics Committee has the power to issue punishments if it concludes lawmakers have violated rules.