Cannibalism

Oh, this is rich.

"The House and Senate leadership has to decide that they have got to aggressively deal with what I think is a much broader problem than just Abramoff: the lobbying process, the election process, the way this city has spun out of control," said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker. "I think the party will be in an uproar if they don't do something about it."

Mr. Gingrich was joined by others in publicly calling for House Republicans to permanently replace Mr. DeLay after the House reconvenes Jan. 31.

Funny thing, the roots of the K Street Project, the petri dish in which the Abramoff bacteria began its life, are in Gingrich's own "Republican Revolution."

In a strongly worded report, special counsel James M. Cole concluded that Gingrich had violated tax law and lied to the investigating panel, but the subcommittee would not go that far. In exchange for the subcommittee agreeing to modify the charges against him, Gingrich agreed to the penalty Dec. 20 [1997] as part of a deal in which he admitted guilt.

Johnson called the reprimand and financial penalty "tough and unprecedented. It is also appropriate," she said. "No one is above the rules of the House."

The ethics committee that handled the charges against Gingrich went out of business at midnight last night without resolving complaints that the speaker received improper gifts, contributions and support from GOPAC, the political action committee he once headed. House Democrats are likely to submit those charges to the new ethics committee.

In addition, the Internal Revenue Service is looking into the use of tax-deductible charitable contributions to finance the college course Gingrich taught, which was at the center of the ethics case, and the ethics committee is making the material it gathered available to the tax agency.

It's sad, really, how quickly The Hammer's "friends" have betrayed his naive trust.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) gave a spirited speech calling the penalty unwarranted. Answering those who said a speaker should be held to a higher standard of ethical conduct, DeLay said: "The highest possible standard does not mean an impossible standard no American could possibly reach." He closed by declaring: "Let's stop this madness, let's stop the cannibalism."

The last phrase echoed the May 31, 1989, resignation speech of House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), who called on lawmakers "to bring this period of mindless cannibalism to an end." Wright resigned in an ethics scandal triggered by a complaint filed by Gingrich.

Despite the partisanship that surrounded the Gingrich ethics case for more than two years, DeLay's speech provided the only spark of yesterday's debate. With Gingrich willing to accept the punishment, the outcome was never in doubt.

At Salon, Michael Scherer has more.

For veterans of congressional ethics scandals, Gingrich makes an unlikely champion of clean politics. It is Gingrich, after all, who still holds the distinction of being the only sitting House speaker to be disciplined by his colleagues for ethical wrongdoing. "Gingrich has a tremendous pot-calling-the-kettle-black problem," says Gary Ruskin, director of the Congressional Accountability Project, a watchdog group that hounded Gingrich during the 1990s. "This hardball fundraising strategy was started by Gingrich."

Before the 1994 election, several reports noted that Gingrich had been warning the heads of corporate political action committees to give generously to Republican candidates or face political retribution. It was a threat that soon became conventional wisdom, as Republican leaders built increasingly close ties to the lobbying community and more and more corporate funds found their way into Republican coffers. By 1996, Gingrich found himself saddled with a number of ethical problems similar in type, though not in scale, to the Abramoff scandal. He was accused of misusing nonprofit organizations for political purposes, personally benefiting from political contributions and giving false statements to ethics investigators. The House eventually voted to reprimand Gingrich and require him to pay a $300,000 penalty.

Odd. Absolute power is supposed to corrupt absolutely, And yet, Gingrich Republicans were corrupt before they'd even gained the majority in the House. It's instructive to keep that in mind.