GOP bid for probe of Democratic leaders fails, but new questions raised in Massa case

GOP loses bid for ethics probe of Dem leaders

WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Thursday stopped a Republican bid to force an investigation of Democratic leaders aimed at determining whether they covered up sexual harassment allegations against ex-Rep. Eric Massa.

Even in failure, Republicans planted questions about when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned about allegations from Massa’s employees that he sexually harassed male staff members. The freshman New York Democrat resigned Monday amid a slew of conflicting statements in which he confirmed and denied that he groped staff members and argued that none of the contact was sexual.

By trying to make Democratic leaders rather than Massa the investigative subjects, Republicans attempted to turn the tables on the party that used ethical misconduct to win control of the House in 2006.

Republicans were hurt in that campaign by revelations that GOP leaders took no action after learning that then-Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., sent sexually suggestive messages to former male pages.

In a resolution demanding an investigation with a June 30 deadline, House Republican leader John Boehner pointed to a meeting last October between Massa’s top aide and a Pelosi staff member.

Pelosi said in a March 4 news conference, after news stories appeared about Massa’s conduct, that she only learned of the harassment allegations the previous day.

“I asked my staff, I said, ‘Have there been any rumors about any of this before?’ There had been a rumor, but just that, no formal notification to our office,” she said.

Pelosi said her staff did not report the rumor to her, “because, you know what? This is rumor city. Every single day there are rumors. I have a job to do and not to be the receiver of rumors.”

On Thursday, Pelosi was asked on MSNBC when her office first learned of possible harassment of Massa’s employees.

“Well, any report to our office was in February that there was an allegation against him and at the same time that it was referred to the ethics committee and that was the appropriate route,” she said.

“I’m now finding out that there had been a conversation earlier, but it had nothing to do — to even come close to any kind of an allegation, it … repeated something that had been in the newspaper the day before.”

Pelosi’s spokesman, Brendan Daly, said there were no harassment allegations discussed in the October meeting between the Massa and Pelosi staff members.

The Massa aide brought along a news article from a paper in Massa’s district that mentioned the congressman lived with five of his employees in a Washington townhouse. The Massa aide informed the speaker’s office that staff members asked their boss to move out, Daly said, and they objected to inappropriate language by the congressman.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office said a Massa aide went to the leader’s staff in February with the allegations. Hoyer told one of his own aides to inform the Massa staffer that either Massa — or someone on Massa’s staff — needed to go to ethics committee within 48 hours. Hoyer said he would report it if Massa or his staff did not. The Massa staffer reported the allegations.

Daly added, “In February, when serious allegations against Mr. Massa were brought to the attention of leader Hoyer and a member of our staff for the first time, the staff concurred that an ethics investigation was the proper course of action.”

The Republican maneuver to force an investigation was part of an all-out GOP effort to highlight Democratic ethical and legal problems in advance of the fall campaign.

Rep. Charles Rangel, a 20-term Democrat, had to step aside as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee after the ethics committee found he violated gift rules by accepting corporate money to attend two Caribbean conferences.

Rangel remains under investigation, prolonging the political agony for Democrats. The committee is investigating whether he used his official position to raise money for a college center named after him, and is looking into his belated reporting of hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets.

The resolution introduced by Boehner would have given the ethics committee no choice about investigating what Democratic leaders knew about Massa. Instead, the House voted 402-1 to allow the ethics committee to decide its next step.

The committee has five members from each party, but a tie vote would kill any proposal to investigate Democratic leaders.

The committee ended its investigation of Massa on Wednesday because his resignation took his case out the committee’s jurisdiction.