The Office of Congressional Ethics recommended full investigations of four members. | AP Photos House ethics panel probing four

The House Ethics Committee is reviewing cases against four members of Congress, including Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and one member of GOP leadership, the panel announced Friday.

The Ethics Committee is probing Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.), Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) and Chief Republican Deputy Whip Peter Roskam of Illinois.


The Office of Congressional Ethics recommended full investigations of all four members. The Ethics Committee — which has already been reviewing the OCE recommendations for 45 days — has another 45 days to decide whether to move forward with full-scale investigations or end the reviews. If the Ethics Committee decides not to launch its own probes into the four members, it must release the OCE reports on each case.

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The Ethics Committee, which operates largely in secret, announced it also looked into a 2008 trip to Turkey by several unnamed Hill aides that was sponsored by the Turkish Coalition of America. The trip was approved by the Ethics Committee at the time, but it was later determined that the sponsoring group employed a lobbyist, making it ineligible to sponsor such an excursion. The Ethics Committee determined that the five aides “acted in good faith, relied on the Committee’s review and approval of the trip, and had no knowledge that TCA employed or retained a lobbyist.”

The Ethics Committee is looking into whether Roskam, a top member of the GOP leadership, accepted an “impermissible gift” when he and Elizabeth Roskam traveled to Taiwan in October 2011. The Ethics Committee approved the Roskams’ trip beforehand, but OCE believes the Taiwanese government and not the Chinese Culture University — the official sponsor — “was conducting and organizing his trip.”

“The record reflects that Rep. Roskam fully complied with all laws, rules, and procedures related to privately sponsored travel. The trip was vetted and approved by the House Ethics Committee, the body legally authorized to make determinations on Congressional conduct,” said Stephnie Kittredge, Roskam’s communications director, in a statement. “The OCE is wrong to take issue with the involvement of the Government of Taiwan in planning and conducting the trip, a matter that is routine, allowed under the law, and was known to the House Ethics Committee as they thoroughly vetted and approved the trip.”

Bachmann, who has already announced that she will retire at the end of this Congress, has faced allegations of ethical wrongdoing for months, although she has repeatedly and consistently denied any wrongdoing. Both OCE and the Federal Election Commission have been looking whether her failed campaign concealed payments to an Iowa state senator who did work for her 2012 presidential bid.

The Ethics Committee — as per usual practice — did not disclose what the allegations were against Bishop. But POLITICO reported in August 2012 that the New York Democrat had intervened on behalf of a hedge fund executive who wanted to put on a fireworks display for his son’s Bar Mitzvah at his home in wealthy Southampton, N.Y. Environmental officials were concerned about the fireworks display being in an ecologically sensitive area.

At the same time, Bishop also sought a campaign donation from the executive, Eric Semler. Semler — a former New York Times reporter — and his wife donated $5,000 to Bishop’s reelection campaign.

Bishop, through a spokesman, said “As I have said many times, I welcome a fair-minded review of the facts because I have done nothing wrong.”

Tierney’s ethical problems were at the center of a tough 2012 reelection fight. Patrice Tierney, the congressman’s wife, pleaded guilty in 2010 to filing false tax returns, saying she was “willfully blind” to the source of millions of dollars in illegal gambling funds from an offshore operation run by her two brothers, Robert and Daniel Eremian. Patrice Tierney managed a checking account for Robert Eremian through which as much as $7 million in proceeds from the illicit gambling ring flowed. And she helped prepare false tax returns for him, according to her plea agreement with the Justice Department.

Tierney has consistently denied any knowledge of his wife’s illegal activities and was reelected last year despite the scandal.

While the Ethics Committee did not state the reason that it was investigating Tierney, the Massachusetts Democrats said it centers around his personal financial disclosure reports.

“I welcome the opportunity to finally put this issue to rest after years of my opponents attacking me and my family. For more than three years they have tried repeatedly to misrepresent gifts my wife received from her brother in appreciation for caring for their dying mother and his three children who were without parental supervision,” Tierney said in a statement.

“There is nothing new that has not already been reviewed in both a court of law and by the voters of my district who sent me back to Congress in two subsequent elections. While political opponents have spent millions of dollars to twist the facts and distort the truth for their own gain, I appreciate that the Ethics Committee has not prejudged the matter. I hope the Committee will expedite its review and I am confident it will find the allegations meritless as they have no foundation in law or fact.

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