House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is sending private signals that she is willing to support watering down the powers of the Office of Congressional Ethics, the panel she and fellow Democrats created last year to serve as a new watchdog on congressional misconduct.

Susan Crabtree of The Hill newspaper reports on a meeting late in May between members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Speaker Pelosi. The Speaker heard a litany of complaints about the OCE's aggressiveness and its public release of documents that reflected badly on...