Headline Roundup May 14, 2015
Questionable Ethics in Congress
Featured Coverage of this Story
Breitbart News
Three current and one former members of the Texas Congressional Delegation are under an ethics investigation, along with six others, in connection with an all-expenses-paid luxury trip to the Caspian Sea, financed by an Azerbaijan state-run company. The trip, and other lavish gifts, were allegedly part of an effort to influence U.S. policy.
The ethics investigation is focused on a 2013 junket in which ten members of Congress traveled on the dime of Azerbaijan state-run oil giant SOCAR. In order to pay for the travel, while concealing the nature of...
USA TODAY
Two Capitol Hill panels that police the ethics of members of Congress appear to be battling about which has authority over 10 lawmakers accused of unwittingly accepting improper travel and gifts from the state oil company of Azerbaijan.
A Washington Post story published Wednesday detailed the contents of a confidential Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) investigation of a 2013 trip to Azerbaijan, a former republic of the Soviet Union in Central Asia.
The OCE was created in 2008 to vet ethics cases and recommend action to the Ethics Committee. The...
The Washington Post
The state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan secretly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference in Baku, on the Caspian Sea, in 2013 for 10 members of Congress and 32 staff members, according to a confidential ethics report obtained by The Washington Post. Three former top aides to President Obama appeared as speakers at the event.
Lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000, according to the ethics report. Airfare for...
