Exposed (so to speak) right before the election...what a surprize!
Fits right in with the dems new election campaign slogan, Republicans and the "climate of corruption".
May I point out that the Dems know a LOT about corruption!
We all know the Clinton corrupt behavior...lets be sure to keep reminding everyone else. And let us remember these fellas too:
Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.)
In 1983, plead quilty to the charge that he had engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male congressional page. On July 20, 1983 the House voted for censure, the first time that censure had been imposed for sexual misconduct. Studds refused to apologize and even turned his back and ignored the censure being read to him. He called a press conference with the former page, in which both stated that they were consenting adults at the time of the relationship (the page was 17 at the time) and that it was therefore not the business of others to censure them for their private “ephebophilic” relationship, and he continued to be reelected until his retirement in 1996.
Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill)
convicted on Aug. 22, 1995 of 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography, on an underage campaign volunteer. Reynolds was sentenced to five years in prison, and resigned his seat. President Clinton commutated his six-and-a-half-year federal sentence for 15 convictions of wire fraud, bank fraud & lies to the Federal Election Commission. He now works as a "youth counselor" for Jesse Jackson's organisaton--no kidding.
Rep. Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.)
Mills ran for President of the United States in the 1972 Democratic primaries.On Oct. 9, 1974, Mills, the Married 65 year old chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and perhaps the most powerful member of the House, was stopped for speeding with no lights on, near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, at 2 a.m. Mills was intoxicated, and his face was cut from a scuffle with his girlfriend, also married stripper Fanne Foxe--who jumped from the car, into the tidal basin. A few weeks later, Mills, drunk again, joined his stripper girlfriend on stage in Boston..
Rep. Wayne Hays (D-Ohio)
In its May 23, 1976, editions, The Washington Post quoted Elizabeth Ray as saying that she was a secretary for the House Administration Committee, headed by Hays, despite the fact that "I can't type, I can't file, I can't even answer the phone." She said the main responsibility of her $14,000-a-year job was to have sex with Hays. He was married for 25 years; and the year before this incident, divorced his longsuffering wife for his Ohio secretary.
Rep. John Young (D-Tex.)
On June 11, 1976, Colleen Gardner, a former staff secretary to Young, told the New York Times that Young increased her salary after she gave in to his sexual advances.
Rep. Allan Howe (D-Utah)
On June 13, 1976, Howe was arrested in Salt Lake City on charges of soliciting two policewomen posing as prostitutes. Howe insisted he was set up and refused to resign.
Rep. Fred Richmond (D-N.Y.)
In April 1978, Richmond was arrested in Washington for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old boy. Richmond apologized for his actions, conceding he "made bad judgments involving my private life." In spite of a Democratic primary opponent's attempts to cash in on the headlines, Richmond easily won renomination and reelection. But his career came to an end four years later when, after pleading guilty to possession of marijuana and tax evasion – and amid allegations that he had his staff procure cocaine for him – he resigned his seat.
Rep. Thomas Evans (R-Del.)
The Wilmington News-Journal reported on March 6, 1981, that – Evans, shared a cottage during a 1980 vacation in Florida with Paula Parkinson, a lobbyist who later posed for Playboy magazine. Evans proceeded to vote against federal crop-insurance legislation that Parkinson had been lobbying against, and questions were raised whether votes were exchanged for sex. Evans said he regretted his "association" with Parkinson and asked his family and God to forgive him.
Sen. Brock Adams (D-Wash.)
On Sept. 27, 1988, Seattle newspapers reported that Kari Tupper, the daughter of Adams's longtime friends, filed a complaint against the Washington Democrat in July of 1987, charging sexual assault. She claimed she went to Adams's house in March 1987 to get him to end a pattern of harassment, but that he drugged her and assaulted her. Adams denied any sexual assault, saying they only talked about her employment opportunities. Adams continued raising campaign funds and declared for a second term in February of 1992. But two weeks later the Seattle Times reported that eight other women were accusing Adams of sexual molestation over the past 20 years, describing a history of drugging and subsequent rape. Later that day, while still proclaiming his innocence, Adams ended his campaign.
Rep. Jim Bates (D-Calif.)
Roll Call quoted former Bates aides in October 1988 saying that the San Diego Democrat made sexual advances toward female staffers. Bates called it a GOP-inspired smear campaign, but also apologized for anything he did that might have seemed inappropriate. The story came too close to Election Day to damage Bates, who won easily. However, the following October the ethics committee sent Bates a "letter of reproval" directing him to make a formal apology to the women who filed the complaint.
Rep. Gus Savage (D-Ill.)
The Washington Post reported on July 19, 1989, that Savage had fondled a Peace Corps volunteer while on an official visit to Zaire. Savage called the story a lie and blamed it on his political enemies and a racist media. (Savage is black.) In January 1990, the House ethics committee decided that the events did occur, but decided against any disciplinary action because Savage wrote a letter to the woman saying he "never intended to offend" her.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)
In response to a story in the Aug. 25, 1989, Washington Times, Frank confirmed that he hired Steve Gobie, a male prostitute, in 1985 to live with and work for him in his D.C. apartment. But Frank, who is gay, said he fired Gobie in 1987 when he learned he was using the apartment to run a prostitution service. The Boston Globe, among others, called on Frank to resign, but he refused. On July 19, 1990, the ethics committee recommended Frank be reprimanded because he "reflected discredit upon the House" by using his congressional office to fix 33 of Gobie's parking tickets. Attempts to expel or censure Frank failed; instead the House voted 408-18 to reprimand him. The fury in Washington was not shared in Frank's district, where he won reelection in 1990 with 66 percent of the vote, and has won by larger margins ever since.
Sen. Charles Robb (D-Va.)
On April 25, 1991, with NBC News about to go on the air with allegations he had an extramarital affair with Tai Collins, a former Miss Virginia, Robb made a preemptive strike. The Virginia Democrat, married to Lyndon Johnson's daughter, said he was with Collins in a hotel room, but all that took place was a massage over a bottle of wine. Collins, in a subsequent interview with Playboy, said they had been having an affair since 1983. It was thought that these charges, along with long-circulated but unproven allegations that Robb had attended Virginia Beach parties where cocaine was present, would jeopardize Robb's 1994 bid for re-election.
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii)
In October 1992, Republican Senate nominee Rick Reed began running a campaign commercial that included a surreptitiously taped interview with Lenore Kwock, Inouye's hairdresser. Kwock said Inouye had sexually forced himself on her in 1975 and continued a pattern of sexual harassment, even as Kwock continued to cut his hair over the years. Inouye, seeking a sixth term, denied the charges. And Kwock said that by running the commercial, Reed had caused her more pain than Inouye had. Reed was forced to pull the ad, and while many voters took out their anger on the Republican, Inouye was held to 57 percent of the vote – the lowest total of his career. A week later, a female Democratic state legislator announced that she had heard from nine other women who claimed Inouye had sexually harassed them over the past decade. But the women didn't go public with their claims, the local press didn't pursue the story, and the Senate Ethics Committee decided to drop the investigation because the accusers wouldn't participate in an inquiry.
REP. JOHN HINSON (D-Miss.):
On Aug. 8, 1980, during his first reelection bid, Hinson stunned everyone by announcing that in 1976 he had been accused of committing an obscene act at a gay haunt in Virginia. Hinson, married, added that in 1977 he had survived a fire in a gay D.C. movie theater. He was making the disclosure, he said, because he needed to clear his conscience. But he denied he was a homosexual and refused GOP demands that he resign. Hinson won reelection in a three-way race, with 39 percent of the vote. But three months later, he was arrested on charges of attempted oral sodomy in the restroom of a House office building. He resigned his seat on April 13, 1981.
REP. ROBERT BAUMAN (D-Md.):
On Oct. 3, 1980, Bauman, pleaded innocent to a charge that he committed oral sodomy on a teenage boy in Washington. Married and the father of four, Bauman conceded that he had been an alcoholic but had been seeking treatment.
Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif.,
Married with children, had affair with intern, Chandra Levy, a consituent whose family lived in his district, and who was later missing, and finally discovered murdered .
Herman Eugene Talmadge
Democrat, Georgia (1957-1980)
The Honorable Herman Talmadge, powerful chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, got blasted by the Senate Ethics Committee in 1979. After 15 months of deliberation, the Committee voted unanimously to denounce Talmadge and recommend that he pay back nearly $13,000 in improper expense funds channeled through a secret bank account. The Committee, under Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson, accused Talmadge of "gross neglect of his duty," his financial conduct "reprehensible," and said he brought "dishonor and disrepute" to the Senate.
Most people would be mortified by a unanimous denouncement from their peers. Not Talmadge: he called it a "personal victory." (What?) "There is no finding of intentional wrong doing. There is no recommendation of censure," Talmadge by now was spinning like a top. Mrs. Talmadge was dragged before the Ethics Committee, and reluctantly testified.
She shocked the committee and reporters by noting that Ol' Herman kept $45,000 in $100 bills in his overcoat. She dipped into it for household expenses. In early years, she said, it was nickels and dimes, then it became $100 bills. One of the charges against Talmadge was that he converted campaign contributions to his own use through a secret bank account. Mrs. Talmadge didn't know where the money came from, but she told the Senators that the overcoat often traveled back and forth between Washington and their home in Georgia. Who transported the coat, the Ethics Committee asked: "My former husband. The Senator," she replied.
Michael Joseph "Ozzie" Myers
Democrat, Pennsylvania (1975-1980)
On October 3, 1980, the Honorable Michael "Ozzie" Myers became the first congressman, since the Civil War, to be expelled for Congress--and the first for official corruption. The vote was 376-30.
Several months earlier, Myers, then 37, was convicted of bribery and conspiracy for taking $50,000 in cash from an FBI undercover agent in the Abscam investigation. He got three years in the federal pen and fined $20,000. He was released before his full term had been completed.
James Traficant
Democrat, Ohio (1985-2002)
Expelled from congress. Traficant was the 18th sitting member of Congress who stood for trial in the past 25 years.
As sheriff of Mahong County, Ohio, in the early 1980s, Traficant was caught on tape accepting bribes from mobsters who wanted him to look the other way while they controlled prostitution, gambling, and drug trafficking. Traficant's defense: he was running his own sting operation against the mob. The good citizens on the jury bought the story, and Traficant was found not guilty.
A federal jury convicted Traficant in April 2002 of ten counts of bribery, racketeering, and corruption. Then the House Ethics Committee conducted its own investigation, voting unanimously in July to expel Traficant and found him guilty of nine counts of violating government ethics rules. They found that Traficant had taken a $2,500-a-month kickback from one of his congressional employees and then asked the staffer to destroy evidence sought by prosecutors. Traficant also accepted money and gratuities from an aerospace company executive who sought his help getting government certification. Traficant was also charged with using his official influence to steer government business to two contractors who had done work on his horse farm in lieu of payments for their work. . On July 25, 2002, for the second time since the Civil War, the House of Representatives expelled a member.
Austin John Murphy
Democrat, Pennsylvania (1977-1994)
The Honorable Austin Murphy received a formal reprimand from the House for ghost voting and misuse of House funds. He diverted government resources from his former Mon Valley, Pennsylvania, law firm, had a "ghost employee" on his House payroll and someone else cast votes for him in the House.
In May 1999, Murphy was indicted by a Fayette County, Pennsylvania, grand jury of engaging in voter fraud. Murphy insisted that he was only trying to help elderly nursing home residents fill out paperwork that accompanied an absentee ballot. Murphy was charged with forgery, conspiracy and tampering with public records. According to the grand jury, Murphy and two others forged absentee ballots for residents of the nursing home and then added Murphy's wife, Eileen, as a write-in candidate for township election judge.
The next month, following closed-door negotiations, all but one of the voter fraud charges were dropped. After the closed-door hearing, Murphy left by a back door to avoid the angry crowd outside.
As punishment, Murphy got 6 months probation and 50 hours of community service.
Daniel Flood
Democrat, Pennsylvania (1945-1947, 1949-1953, 1955-1980)
The Honorable Daniel Flood, flamboyant subcommittee chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles in 1978 on charges of lying about payoffs he allegedly received.
