Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The Hill reports:
Amid blowback from Democrats, Rep. Marsha Blackburn on Tuesday defended a GOP-backed amendment that would weaken the House’s outside ethics watchdog. Blackburn said the amendment would provide more transparency in investigations.
“What it will do is provide more transparency. Anytime you can provide more accountability and more transparency to any process that is in place, then you’re going to take another step toward draining the swamp, and I am all for draining the swamp,” the Tennessee Republican said on CNN.
On Monday, the eve of the beginning of a new session of Congress, the House GOP Conference adopted an amendment that would put the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) under the oversight of lawmakers through the House Ethics Committee. The proposal bars the OCE from considering anonymous tips about potential ethics violations and prevents disclosures about investigations.
Democrats are screaming:
“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,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress,” the House Democratic leader said.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) echoed that sentiment, accusing House Republicans of “signaling a return to the days of Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay.”
“It should be clear by now that Donald Trump – already the most corrupt and conflicted President-elect in history – is betraying his promise to drain the swamp. Now Republicans in the House are following his example, attempting to cripple the independent entity that deals with ethics in Congress,” DNC spokesman Eric Walker said in a statement.
Rep. @MarshaBlackburn on House GOP vote to gut ethics panel: This will provide more transparency. https://t.co/kD3ISqMcgF
— New Day (@NewDay) January 3, 2017