-Caveat Lector- Congress: America's Criminal Class - Part II After promising accountability, Speaker Newt Gingrich took care of his own Part I -- Rep. Corrine Brown: A trail of lies & deceit Part II -- Rep. Jim Moran: Virginia's bombastic Congressman By the staff of Capitol Hill Blue In March of 1998, a casual observer might have thought California Republican Congressman Jay Kim's career was over. Kim had admitted to committing the largest amount of campaign violations ever by a member of Congress. More than one-third of the contributions to his 1992 primary campaign, which he won by only 889 votes, were illegal. "Jay Kim probably stole a congressional election in 1992 by this fraudulent campaign financing scheme. If the House is serious about the meaning of elections and democracy, they'll expel him, and soon," said Gary Ruskin, who directs the Congressional Accountability Project. "In my view, Jay Kim's presence cheapens the moral authority of every other member there." After pleading guilty to accepting more than $250,000 in illegal corporate and foreign campaign contributions, Kim was sentenced to two months of "house arrest," restricted to his suburban Virginia home and the halls of Congress. But he kept his job, and all the perks that went with it. The following month, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) appointed Kim to the House-Senate group negotiating the budget-busting highway bill. "He's a very active member," said House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster. "His plight has not diminished his effectiveness here in Congress," said fellow California Republican David Drier. Kim's estranged wife, June, was less charitable. "It's really frustrating that our law is not tough enough to get him out right away," she said. "He's humiliated us enough." Despite her wishes, and the demands of others, the law did not require Kim to quit and Congressional leaders, as a rule, usually find a way to accommodate, not punish, fellow members who break the law. Other House members have kept their seats even while serving in prison: Rep. Thomas Lane (D-Mass.) went to jail from May 7 to Sept. 7, 1956, for tax evasion and Rep. Matthew Lyon (R-Vt.) was imprisoned for violating the Sedition Act in 1798 but returned to Congress after a mob broke him out of jail. Kim announced immediately after his conviction and sentencing that he would run for re-election to a fourth term. "His plan is to win the primary, win the general election and move ahead," spokesman P.J. O'Neil said at the time. California Republicans rallied to Kim's defense. Rep. Jerry Lewis, predicted Kim would defy the predictions of his political demise. "Jay, I expect, will be with us for a long time," Lewis said. He wasn't. Kim was creamed in the California congressional primary just two months later. Gingrich told fellow Republicans he saw no reason to punish Kim or exclude him from Congressional business. "He's been punished by the court," Gingrich said. "That's enough." Kim "punishment" was two months home detention and a $5,000 fine. He could have been sent to prison for three years and fined more than $100,000. His problems came right when committees in both the House and Senate were getting ready to probe illegal campaign contributions to the President's 1996 re-election campaign. When it comes to members who break the law, leaders of both the House and Senate usually rally around those in their own party and call for the heads of those on the other side of the aisle. When punishment is demanded, the motivation is almost always political revenge, not justice. At the time Gingrich showed such leniency to Kim, he was himself making payments on a $300,000 fine by the ethics committee, the worst ever levied against a member of Congress. The fine grew out of charges filed by Michigan Democrat David Bonior, who openly admitted he was getting even with Gingrich for the Georgia Republican's role in bringing down former Democratic Speaker Jim Wright of Texas. "It's called payback," Bonior told reporters. "Our political system doesn't act out of a sense of justice," says former Southern Illinois University political scientist George Harleigh. "What you have is political expediency, driven by revenge and gain. So the reaction of those in power is to protect their own. Members of Congress operate on a different plane where right and wrong don't exist - only winning and losing." It's been that way for years in Congress within both parties. When the Republicans took control of the House and Senate in the 1994 elections, new Speaker of the House Gingrich promised to put an end to such practices. Yet during his four years as Speaker, Gingrich often looked the other way when members of his own party crossed the legal line. As both the House and Senate prepared to investigate illegal foreign contributions to the Democratic National Committee and the 1996 Clinton presidential campaign, a number of Republicans urged Gingrich not to allow Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton of Indiana to chair the inquiry. Burton, they said, was damaged goods. Stories were circulating on the Hill that the fiery Hoosier Republican, a known womanizer, had fathered a child out of wedlock and that it was only a matter of time before it surfaced in the media. Gingrich dismissed the allegations as trivial and unimportant. The Speaker was engaged in an illicit affair of his own with a House Agriculture Committee staff member and had little stomach to punish another member of his own party for extra-marital dalliances. But Burton had a more serious problem. He had approved nearly $500,000 in payments and salary to a former model named Claudia Keller, who was also listed as his campaign manager, and who appeared simultaneously on his political and official House payrolls. It is against the law for lawmakers to use their office budgets to subsidize their campaigns, or vice versa. In Burton's case, the dual payments to Keller, mostly over a nine year span, were often made during the same periods of time, according to federal records. In one year, according to House Finance office documents and FEC records, Keller received almost $22,000 for working at Burton's Indianapolis and Greenwood district offices an average of two days a week, along with nearly $44,000 for her full-time campaign job. The Burton campaign had also paid Keller $250 a month to rent office space in her Lawrence, Ind., home, which is outside Burton's district, by declaring it the campaign headquarters. And Keller also received more than $50 ,000 in campaign-related expenses, including payments for appearances by her clown service, FEC records show. Keller was well known in Burton's district as a longtime girlfriend. Denise Range, a neighbor, said she often saw Keller wearing lingerie when Burton came to visit. Melissa Bickel, another neighbor, said Keller would send her daughter over to their house when Burton came calling, which was three or four times a week. When asked about this at the time, a Burton spokesman said he was not sure what Keller's duties were, but would "look into it." Keller later moved to Washington to become the Congressman's scheduler. Burton eventually went public about his out-of-wedlock child just before the Indianapolis Star was about to break the story. Even reluctant Democrats agreed he handled the issue well, admitting the affair and expressing r egret about the damage it inflicted on his marriage. But he has not dealt as effectively with the Claudia Keller issue. The U.S. Attorney in Indianapolis is investigating the Congressman's possible use of "shadow" employees on the Congressional payroll. When Gingrich's staff discussed Burton's problems, the Speaker dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "Old news," he said. "No big deal." Burton was a loyal soldier, a made man. He would be protected. "Newt ran the House like a Godfather," says former GOP staffer Jonathan Luckstill. "His soldiers were protected at all costs." Some say Gingrich was reluctant to deal with problem members because he had too many skeletons in his own closet. His affair with the Agriculture Committee Staff Aide Callista Bisek, 33, was in full bloom. Details of the relationship are only now surfacing as part of a nasty divorce battle between Gingrich and his estranged wife, Marianne. But Gingrich was also having trouble finding enough clean members of his own party to run the investigations not only into campaign fundraising abuse, but the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. "Every time the Speaker looked at a potential candidate to lead the charge, they would have problems," said one former staff member. "It seemed like everyone had a secret to hide." Even grandfatherly House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde had legal and ethical problems. Hyde served on on the board of directors of Clyde Federal Savings and Loan Association in Illinois from 1981-84. Regulators seized Clyde S& L in 1990, and the ensuing taxpayer bailout cost $67 million. In 1993, the Resolu tion Trust Corporation (RTC) brought a civil action against Clyde's board, including Hyde, seeking damages of $17.2 million for "gross negligence in mishandling the thrift." Minutes of Clyde's board meetings show Hyde played an active role in some of the S&L's most foolhardy adventures. He approved participation in a loan for a Texas luxury beachfront condominium project that defaulted, costi ng Clyde $3.7 million. Clyde had no experience in out-of-state construction loans, and it made the loan based on information provided by a loan broker who "stood to receive a substantial fee" if the loan was approved. (Ironically, the lead lend er was Guaranty S&L, of Harrison, Arkansas -- the same S& L of Bill Clinton's Whitewater scandal.) Hyde also approved a risky options trading program, and purchase of Grand Cayman Island Eurodollar securities. The U.S. District Court refused to dismiss gross negligence claims, noting the gravity of the RTC's charge that Clyde's directors failed to "heed regulatory criticisms as set forth in [Federal Home Loan Bank Board] Examin ation reports, correspondence, and supervisory meetings." Hyde tried to avoid paying his share of the judgment, claiming, "I'm a victim of a lawsuit that never should have been brought. I'm not paying a nickel." Hyde claimed Congressional immunity, but finally agreed, reluctantly, to pay after two federal courts told him such immunity does not exist and that he, as a Congressman, was not above the law. Gingrich was aware of Hyde's problems, but still decided the silver-haired Illinois Congressman was the man for the job. "Right now, Henry has less baggage than many of the others," Gingrich told his senior staffers. "He can handle the job." But it wasn't Hyde's ethical problems with the S&L that would haunt him during the impeachment inquiry. It was a 30-year-old affair back in Illinois. The media, it turned out, was also more obsessed with sex than ethics. Some critics feel Hyde mishandled the impeachment inquiry into Clinton's perjury and obstruction of justice from his affair with a former White House intern. "You have to wonder if the Republicans in both the House and Senate eased off their pursuit of the President and the Democrats in the DNC fundraising scandal because of their own vulnerability," says political scientist H arleigh. "And Congressman Hyde gave in on several key points demanded by the Democrats in the impeachment process. Was this because of his own problems? At this point, we probably will never know." Gingrich's determination to protect his soldiers was not unique to his job or his party. Speakers from both sides of the aisle have used their office to protect their own. Former Democratic Speaker Tom Foley ignored calls from Democrats and Republicans alike to remove power Illinois Rep. Dan Rostenkowski from his powerful committee posts after the Congressman was caught converting official funds to personal use. Foley did everything he could to protect his friend from Illinois. Both Foley and Rostenkowski lost their bids for re-election in the 1994 elections that swept the Democrats out of power and put the Republicans in charge of the House and Senate. Rostenkowski later went to prison for his crimes, but is out now and back in Washington working as a lobbyist. And it was after those 1994 election that Republicans elected Newt Gingrich as the new Speaker of the House. He promised, after his election, to "return accountability to Congress." (This report was coordinated and written by Capitol Hill Blue editor Jack Sharp with assistance from researcher Marilyn Crosslyn and private investigator James Hargill.) Kathleen "Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States." -- J. 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