Ethics panel extends review of GOP rep

The House Ethics Committee is extending its review of Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) after an independent watchdog said there’s “substantial reason to believe” he improperly kept a staffer accused of sexual harassment on his payroll.

The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), which reviews allegations of misconduct against members and recommends action to the House Ethics Committee, says Meadows may have violated House rules by authorizing incommensurate payments to his former chief of staff, Kenny West, who was ultimately dismissed. 

{mosads}Meadows himself requested a review from the House Ethics Committee. He declined to cooperate with the OCE’s review, saying that it would be duplicative, given that the House Ethics Committee has the final word on whether members are in compliance with the chamber’s rules.

Multiple government accountability groups asked the OCE to investigate Meadows following a Politico report last fall about the severance payments.

Meadows has said the compensation constituted “severance” pay for continuing to perform some transitional duties after West agreed to resign. However, OCE said there were no records of Meadows filing any “severance” or “lump sum” request forms during the transitional period.  

Staff members in Meadows’s congressional offices raised sexual harassment allegations against West in October 2014. By the following April, the OCE says in a report released Wednesday, Meadows told his staff that he intended to find a new chief of staff. Meadows changed West’s title to “senior advisor” at the time and later filed a form in May 2015 notifying the House payroll that West had been terminated. A new chief of staff was hired in July 2015.

Yet West received a salary from the House of Representatives at his full-time rate of $155,000 annually until August 2015.

Meadows said that West continued to perform duties such as traveling to constituent meetings on his behalf during the transitional period between May and August. Meadows later reimbursed the U.S. Treasury $400 out of his personal funds after media reports emerged about West’s severance payment arrangement.

“Throughout this process, I always intended to act in good faith compliance with all rules and regulations, and in the best interests of my constituents in my stewardship of the Congressional office. I believe I met those goals, even if my interpretation of what kinds of severance are technically permitted may have been in error,” Meadows wrote in a letter to the House Ethics Committee.

Meadows’s counsel, Elliot Berke, said that the process undertaken to review the allegations against West and ultimately dismiss him was confirmed by the Office of House Employment Counsel to be consistent with precedent.

“It was his belief that these severance payments were consistent with House Rules and practice,” Berke wrote in a statement released by the House Ethics Committee on Wednesday. 

– Updated at 12:28 p.m.