Now there’s Fox, which promotes the ruling party’s agenda and tries to “drown out the voices of reason, the voices of constitutionality,” Clyburn said.
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Clyburn: Bush appointees created ‘culture of corruption’
By LEE HENDREN
T&D Staff Writer
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Sixth District U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn said Thursday he can support Republican proposals to ban congressmen from accepting gifts, including privately funded trips.
But he thinks it’s the wrong response to a lobbying scandal roiling Washington in this election year.
“There’s almost a total (gift ban) now. It’s (limited to) $50,” the Democratic congressman said in an interview after giving a speech at Claflin University.
“If we limited all travel to only travel taken by the federal government rather than sponsored by private groups, I’d be for all of that,” Clyburn said. “Traveling ain’t anything I’m all that enamored with.”
Republican leaders are “seriously considering” the action as “a very strong statement” to voters, Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., told The Associated Press.
“The problem is not lobbyists” or the rules governing their activities, Clyburn said. “The problem is these congresspeople who occupy positions of power in Washington who are not following the law.”
“The rule was, if you take a trip sponsored by somebody, you have to reveal it. You have to file a report (stating) exactly what the trip’s all about. No big deal,” Clyburn said.
“If you remember, my name came up in this at one point,” he said. “My reports were all there, so, no problem.”
The problem is not with the law or the reporting system it created, Clyburn said; it’s with “the character of the people we’re electing to office. ... These people were not filing the reports!”
Clyburn, who has served in Congress since 1992, sees ethical problems all around Washington.
For instance, he said “every single professional lawyer in the Justice Department rejected” a Texas redistricting proposal engineered by Rep. Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader.
The lawyers said the plan was unconstitutional and violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Clyburn said.
“However, they were overruled by (President) Bush’s appointees who put in their culture — a culture of corruption,” Clyburn said.
“If they had followed the law as the lawyers (understood it), DeLay’s efforts would have stopped right there. No, no. And that’s why he’s headed to jail, because they were outside the law. Rather than following the law, they went outside the law,” the congressman said.
DeLay has been charged with moneylaundering, but has not been found guilty.
“They’ve had droves of resignations from the Justice Department, but the media never write about it,” Clyburn said.
“I mean, you know, if my staff were to resign en masse, you are going to want to know why. So you’ve got all the professional lawyers in the Justice Department leaving (and) no media is writing about that,” he said.
“And that’s why you see all these other things. They’re (investigating) who leaked the stuff on (Valerie) Plame — somebody who just got sick of this stuff and said, ’Come on, this ain’t right.’ How do you get mad at somebody’s husband and you ’out’ them (as) a CIA operative?”
“They want to know now who leaked the (information) on the (domestic) spying — somebody who knew that this wasn’t right,” Clyburn said.
“The people who are doing right, who are the whistle-blowers, they’re getting blamed for blowing the whistle on the wrongdoers,” Clyburn said. “Nobody seems to be doing anything about the wrongdoers.”
“If the Justice Department were allowed to pursue this investigation, what you’re going to find will make Watergate look like a Sunday school picnic,” Clyburn said.
“When asked about the (Watergate) break-in, whether or not he had violated the law, (former president Richard) Nixon said, if the president does it, it’s not against the law,” Clyburn said.
“You look at what George Bush is saying, some of the words and phrases may be different but it’s the same thing: When I do it, it’s not against the law,” Clyburn said.
“If this ain’t Watergate revisited, you tell me what it is.”
But there’s a big difference now, he said. Back in the 1970s, the media was dominated by The Washington Post and The New York Times and journalists like Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Ben Bradlee who strove to fulfill their role as watchdogs of government.
Now there’s Fox, which promotes the ruling party’s agenda and tries to “drown out the voices of reason, the voices of constitutionality,” Clyburn said.
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