{"id":1426,"date":"2004-03-18T12:54:24","date_gmt":"2004-03-18T17:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1426.html"},"modified":"2004-03-18T12:54:24","modified_gmt":"2004-03-18T17:54:24","slug":"ethics-committee-officially-opens-investigation-into-smith-bribery-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/ethics-committee-officially-opens-investigation-into-smith-bribery-affair\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics Committee officially opens investigation into Smith bribery affair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This one needs a better name. Bribegate? That&#8217;s no good. <a href=\"mailto:admin@thecarpetbaggerreport.com\">I&#8217;m open to suggestion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>No matter what you call it, the investigation into the illegal bribes offered to Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) on the House floor during the Medicare debate has reached the big time. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A2851-2004Mar17.html\">House Ethics Committee announced yesterday<\/a> it will conduct a &#8220;full and complete inquiry&#8221; into the scandal.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The inquiry into Rep. Nick Smith&#8217;s allegations marks the first time in 20 months that the ethics panel has publicly announced such a &#8220;formal inquiry&#8221; into reports of questionable behavior by House members. Smith, who has never identified the lawmakers he said tried to influence his vote, promised to &#8220;cooperate fully with the inquiry.&#8221; He and the ethics panel &#8212; formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct &#8212; declined further comment.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a statement last night that a formal ethics inquiry into Smith&#8217;s claims is &#8220;the only way that the House can remove the cloud of suspicion that hangs over this matter to this day.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Since Smith has contradicted himself <a href=\"http:\/\/slate.msn.com\/id\/2093667\/\">at least twice<\/a> in trying to back away from his initial complaints, I can&#8217;t wait to hear what he has to say under oath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This one needs a better name. Bribegate? That&#8217;s no good. I&#8217;m open to suggestion. No matter what you call it, the investigation into the illegal bribes offered to Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) on the House floor during the Medicare debate has reached the big time. The House Ethics Committee announced yesterday it will conduct a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}