Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona received letters from the House Ethics Committee on Tuesday saying the panel would not investigate claims they helped instigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
HOUSE ETHICS COMMITTEE CLEARS BOEBERT OF ALLEGATION SHE HELPED INSTIGATE CAPITOL RIOT
This comes days after the panel’s Chairman Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat, and ranking member Jackie Walorski, an Indiana Republican, sent a similar letter to Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, which cleared her of the same accusation. The claims were all made by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat.
“This patently baseless claim attempted to conflate political disagreements with ethics,” Gosar said in a statement on Tuesday. “The House Committee on Ethics should not be politicized for partisan purposes.”
In a tweet Tuesday, Boebert wrote, “I would love to see how many taxpayer dollars Rep. Jayapal wasted on her ridiculous ethics complaint rehashing leftist media talking points. Luckily, the House Committee on Ethics saw through this posturing and dismissed her partisan complaint.”
Along with 117 other GOP members, the three House Republicans objected to Arizona’s Electoral College results. In his response to the committee, Gosar mentioned that Jayapal did the same thing in 2016 related to Georgia’s presidential election certification.
Jayapal, however, also sent letters of complaints of all three Republican members to the Office of Congressional Ethics, in hopes of a “potentially” different outcome.
Unlike the House Ethics Committee, the OCE is composed of an eight-person board of directors who are private citizens charged with reviewing claims. The OCE, though, lacks subpoena power and must finish every review within at least three months.
Following the committee not pursuing charges against Boebert, Jayapal told the Washington Examiner that she expected such a result.
“It’s bipartisan committee of equal members, and we had a feeling that given everything that was happening, they would clear her, but we also have a request in to the office of congressional ethics,” she said. “So, we’re still waiting on them. They can’t get started until the House Ethics Committee makes its decision.”
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She noted, “I just think these things really have to be looked into, and we need to be sure that there’s some accountability for some of these members.”
