Indiana Rep. Susan Brooks applauds House ethics reversal

WASHINGTON — Indiana Rep. Susan Brooks, the incoming head of the House Ethics Committee, applauded Tuesday fellow Republicans' reversal of efforts to rein in an independent ethics office — a hasty retreat by the GOP after watchdog groups and President-elect Donald Trump criticized the move.

But Brooks said many of the changes Republicans had voted Monday to include in a package of rules to be adopted by the GOP-controlled House Tuesday are worthy of discussion. She said she would work with her Republican and Democratic colleagues on the committee "to come up with a bipartisan agreement on a path forward."

"Together, we can preserve the independence of the Office of Congressional Ethics, maintain the highest ethical standards of the House, and ensure that the American people are informed," the Carmel Republican said in a statement.

The controversy over GOP plans to sharply curtail the powers of the Office of Congressional Ethics overshadowed the opening day of Congress, where Republicans control both chambers and soon will welcome a Republican president for the first time in eight years.

"House Republicans made the right move in eliminating this amendment that should never have seen the light of day," said David Donnelly, president and CEO of Every Voice watchdog group, on Tuesday. "Not one voter went to the polls in November hoping Congress would gut ethics oversight."

How lawmakers voted in the meeting was not made public. Indiana Democratic Party Chairman John Zody said Hoosiers should ask their lawmakers where they stand.

“How did Jackie Walorski, Luke Messer and the rest of the Indiana Republican delegation vote on this?” Zody said in a statement. “We don’t know, and while they continue their silence, they are now opening the doors to the same practices they campaigned against just months ago.”

Brooks and Walorski said in statements they opposed the change.

Newly-elected Rep. Jim Banks said he would have preferred the ethics issue had been addressed “in a more thoughtful way” but declined to specify how he voted Monday.

Other GOP members of the delegation did not immediately respond to a request for comment, or declined to say how they voted.

Banks is succeeding former Rep. Marlin Stutzman, who had been investigated by the independent ethics office. The House Ethics Committee took no action before Stutzman retired on the independent office's conclusion that Stutzman may have improperly used campaign funds to pay for a personal family trip to California. But the current rules required the Ethics Committee to acknowledge it had received the independent group's review and release those findings.

Trump questioned Tuesday why lawmakers would first act on changing the independent ethics body. “With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority,” Trump tweeted.

The overhaul, crafted by House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., would have subjected the watchdog group to oversight by the lawmaker-controlled House Ethics Committee and bar the independent ethics agency from investigating anonymous complaints against House members.

It also sought to prevent the agency from reviewing potential criminal acts by members of Congress — and instead would have required that it hand over those complaints to the House Ethics Committee or law enforcement.

Goodlatte said his changes were needed to grant better “due-process rights for individuals under investigation." He said they would still maintain independent agency's “primary area of focus of accepting and reviewing complaints from the public and referring them, if appropriate, to the Committee on Ethics.”

Trump's objections to the House Republican action appeared to center more on timing of the move, rather than the substance of the decision to rein in the independent watchdog.

Asked whether Trump wanted House Republicans to strengthen the ethics office, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Tuesday morning that “it’s not a question of strengthening or weakening.”

“It's a question of priorities” and Trump’s “belief that with all that this country wants … to have happen, this really shouldn't be the priority," Spicer said.

His comments came before House Republicans reversed course.

Rep. Andre Carson, D-Indianapolis, said he was relieved by the reversal.

"With all of the challenges that America faces today, I am deeply concerned that this was the first action that was being considered in the 115th Congress," Carson said in a statement. "I hope this is not indicative of the direction Congress is headed over the next two years.”

Democratic leaders and ethics watchdogs swiftly denounced the Republicans’ move Monday night — and called it a stealth maneuver to eviscerate the agency without public debate.

“Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday night.

"Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress," she added.

“In shameful act, @BobGoodlatte6 moves to gut House Office of Congressional Ethics,” Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute wrote on Twitter. “House Republicans say goodbye to ethics! Despicable move.”

Several ethics watchdogs, who have called on Trump to divest his business enterprises before taking office, also sought to tie the Republicans’ moves on Capitol Hill to Trump, who made "draining the swamp" a mantra of his presidential campaign.

Trump has said he will turn over his real-estate and branding empire to his two adults sons and executives to manage. In an effort to reduce potential conflicts, he and his family have announced plans in recent weeks to shutter family foundations and have settled disputes with workers at Trump hotels. But few details have emerged on how Trump will distance himself legally from his vast holdings.

“The House Republicans are taking a cue from the leader of the party in their flagrant disregard for ethics,” said Norm Eisen, who served as President Obama’s top ethics lawyer and is chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.  He called the ethics agency “one of the gems of our system of checks and balances.”

“If this is what one-party rule looks like in the era of Trump," Eisen said, "I do not believe the American people will stand for it for very long."