Democrats Ignore Industry Scandals

June 19th, 2008 at 09:27pm Matt Margolis

Republican Leader Boehner blogs about yet another example of the Democrats’ hypocrisy

The Republican-led Congress conducted bipartisan hearings and investigations following scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and other corporate entities during the early part of this decade, in part to address public concerns about the possibility of unethical links between high-powered lawmakers and the powerful interests they were charged with overseeing. But the Democrat-controlled 110th Congress has no such track record. Under Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who once ironically pledged to “drain the swamp” in Washington, the House has stood flatfooted as scandals have erupted involving the trial lawyer industry and possible sweetheart deals between senior Democrats and mortgage lending giant Countrywide.

Speaker Pelosi and her committee chairs have refused to hold even a single hearing on the illegal kickback scandal that has embroiled the powerhouse trial lawyer firm formerly known as Milberg Weiss, despite assertions by the firm’s former chief (a major Democratic donor now serving a two-year prison sentence) that the criminal acts his firm engaged in are an “industry practice.” And this week, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) stated he has no plans to hold even a single oversight hearing to look into special “VIP” housing perks that Countrywide gave powerful congressional Democrats at the same time it was hiking mortgage rates on American families. House Republican leaders have formally requested bipartisan hearings on both matters.

Rep. Pelosi and others once said Congress had an obligation to hold oversight hearings to restore public confidence in the wake of major industry scandals, regardless of who might get burned. But that was then; this is now. Now settled into their majority, senior congressional Democrats have lost all traces of the investigatory zeal they demonstrated during the dark days of Enron and WorldCom. Instead they’re thumbing their noses at calls for oversight hearings on industry scandals involving the trial lawyer industry and Countrywide.

Read the whole thing, and ask yourself why Democrats are not investigating scandals involving the trial lawyer industry and Countrywide…

Tags: democrat hypocrisy, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi

Entry Filed under: Corruption

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