The House Ethics Committee announced on May 9 it has opened inquiries into Reps. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) and Wesley Hunt (R-Texas).
“The committee notes that the mere fact of a referral or an extension, and the mandatory disclosure of such an extension and the name of the subject of the matter, does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred, or reflect any judgment on behalf of the committee,” said the committee in its statements about Mr. Jackson and Mr. Hunt.
Mr. Hunt’s spokesperson, Matthew Topolski, told The Epoch Times the congressman “has been in full cooperation with the House Ethics Committee and is extremely confident that the matter will be dismissed shortly.”
A spokesperson for Mr. Jackson also spoke to The Epoch Times.
“This baseless complaint from OCE raises no new information, and despite over two years at the Committee on Ethics it is still being looked into,” the spokesperson said, referring to the Office of Congressional Ethics. “Once again, Congressman Jackson has nothing to hide, and he and his team have fully complied with the Ethics Committee since the beginning.”
In 2022, the nonpartisan Board of the Office of Congressional Ethics referred Mr. Jackson to the House Ethics Committee for allegedly reporting “campaign disbursements that may not be legitimate and verifiable campaign expenditures attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes,” stating that if he used campaign funds for personal use or if his “campaign committee expended funds that were not attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes,” then he “may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law.”
Other House Ethics Investigations
The committee has been in the forefront this Congress due to the controversies surrounding former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.).A report found that there was evidence that Mr. Santos knowingly violated a number of criminal and ethical statutes.
The evidence reportedly supports claims that he “knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission; used campaign funds for personal purposes; engaged in fraudulent conduct, ... and engaged in knowing and willful violations of the Ethics in Government Act.”
According to the report, the committee compiled a “voluminous” record, with more than 170,000 pages of documents and testimonies from dozens of witnesses to offer insight into the case.
The committee was recently in the spotlight for declining to investigate Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) for pulling a fire alarm in the a congressional office building during a vote in September.
In a press release issued on Nov. 22, the committee announced its decision not to investigate the New York representative, following charges being filed by the District of Columbia Attorney General’s Office.
The House Ethics Committee has an equal number of Republican and Democrat seats. It is chaired by Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) while Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) is the ranking member.
