Ethics panel to investigate Filner’s assault charge

The House ethics committee announced Wednesday that it had voted to establish an investigative subcommittee to review a misdemeanor charge against Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.) for his alleged assault of a Dulles airport baggage employee in August.

{mosads}Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), who chairs the ethics panel, and Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the committee’s ranking member, announced the inquiry in a written statement. The investigation will not begin until the court proceedings regarding the incident are completed, according to the statement. Earlier this month, the Loudoun County General District Court in Virginia served Filner with a summons to appear at an Oct. 2 court hearing.

“The Committee recommended that the investigative subcommittee defer action on its investigation until the proceedings involving Representative Filner in Loudoun County have concluded,” Jones and Hastings said in their statement.

Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) will chair the investigative subcommittee and Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.) will be the ranking member. The other members of the subcommittee are Reps. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.).

The investigation was triggered by a new House ethics rule Democrats sponsored and passed in early June in the wake of Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) indictment on 16 counts of bribery and corruption. The rule requires the ethics committee to either empanel an investigative subcommittee or review the allegations and submit a report to the House describing its reasons for not doing so “not later than 30 days” after a member is indicted or charged with a crime.

According to Jones and Hastings’s statement, the Loudoun County court charged Filner with misdemeanor assault and battery “on or about August 20, 2007.” The incident allegedly took place Aug. 19.

Filner, who was on his way to Iraq at the time of the incident, has said he was tired and has called the charges “ridiculous.”