WASHINGTON — The House Ethics Committee announced Friday that it was extending its reviews of two members of Congress who have been accused in separate cases of improprieties involving their outside business interests.
The two lawmakers — Reps. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., and Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. — each predicted that the Ethics Committee would ultimately find no wrongdoing.
The Ethics Committee has been investigating Buchanan’s failure to disclose in full 17 outside business interests in his public financial filings. One of the richest members of Congress, Buchanan made a fortune as an auto dealer and has been involved in land and development deals in Florida.
In addition to the disclosure issues, several of Buchanan’s car dealerships were found to have used illegal “straw” donations to reimburse employees for contributions to Buchanan’s congressional campaigns. While some employees testified that Buchanan directed the reimbursements, he said he knew nothing about the practice.
Buchanan’s office said in a statement Friday that “we are working with the committee and are confident that, at the end of its review, the committee will conclude that congressman Buchanan engaged in no wrongdoing.”
The congressman leads campaign-finance operations for House Republican candidates, and Republican leaders were hoping for a quick end to the Ethics Committee review to avoid political attacks from Democrats over the issue.
Berkley, the Nevada Democrat, has positioned herself as a champion of kidney care in Congress at the same time that her husband has worked as one of the top doctors in Nevada in the field. In 2008, she helped lead efforts to block a move by federal regulators to close Nevada’s only kidney-transplant center, which had a $738,000 contract with her husband’s medical practice.
Nevada Republican opponents, in bringing an ethics complaint against Berkley last year, accused her of using her congressional work on the issue to enrich herself through her husband’s medical work.
“As the committee reviews this complaint, they will determine that congresswoman Shelley Berkley’s only concern is for the well-being of Nevada’s patients,” her campaign manager, Jessica Mackler, said in a statement.
“That’s why she fought against out-of-state Washington bureaucrats from restricting patients’ access to care and why she joined fellow Representatives Jon Porter and Dean Heller to stop Nevada’s only kidney transplant program from being shut down, which would have denied lifesaving treatment to hundreds of Nevadans,” the statement said.
Both the Buchanan and Berkley matters were referred to the Ethics Committee in February by the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent investigative arm of the House.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 03/24/2012