Ethics panel looks into Cheeks Kilpatrick trip

[leland_palmer]

TODD SPANGLER
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

The House Ethics Committee is launching an investigation into a Caribbean trip taken last year by Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Detroit and others.

The panel – officially known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct – announced today that it was establishing an investigative subcommittee to look at the two-day trip to St. Maarten just days after the November election. [[According to her disclosures, Kilpatrick took her sister along on the trip.)

At issue is whether the trip was sponsored in full by NY Carib News, a nonprofit group that promotes relations between the U.S. and Caribbean nations. It said it was – and that’s why the Ethics Committee signed off on the trip, since Carib News doesn’t have a federal lobbyist. But Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center in Falls Church, Va., flew down to see for himself and found strong suggestions other sponsors were involved, such as corporate logos for Citigroup, Verizon and others plastered around.

Some of those companies do have federal lobbyists – Citi, for instance, spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress last year – and so members can’t attend paid junkets on their behalf under the rules.

The Detroit News goes deeper into the details.

[tkelly1986]

Only a matter of time; Cheek-Kilpatrick is as corrupt as her Detroit City counterparts [[or maybe worse). She is also one of the laziest members of congress. I say this as a former congressional staffer that interacted with her at times…..She cannot be the best Detroit has to offer. If so, we are all doomed.

[Homer]

How dare they. My Rep Momma K. was trying to improve relations with the Caribbean Island people in the interest of her constituants here in the D.

[MIRepublic]

Only a matter of time; Cheek-Kilpatrick is as corrupt as her Detroit City counterparts [[or maybe worse). She is also one of the laziest members of congress. I say this as a former congressional staffer that interacted with her at times…..She cannot be the best Detroit has to offer. If so, we are all doomed.

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but she's far more legislatively active, bright, and effective than the woman she replaced. That ain't saying a lot, but it's true. lol She happens to be a lot of not-so-great things, but I haven't ever thought of her as especially lazy as far as congresspersons go.

[Detroitej72]

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but she's far more legislatively active, bright, and effective than the woman she replaced. That ain't saying a lot, but it's true. lol She happens to be a lot of not-so-great things, but I haven't ever thought of her as especially lazy as far as congresspersons go.

Yeh, remember all those billboards she had around town during election time stating how she brings home the bread to us!

[tkelly1986]

but I haven't ever thought of her as especially lazy as far as congresspersons go.

Compared to Barbara Rose Collins she may not be lazy, but compared to the average congressperson, she is a joke. Bright? That is a stretch. Clueless, self absorbed, incompetent…those are more accurate.

If we take her out of the Detroit realm and don’t compare her to local leaders, but rather counterpart national leaders, she is worthless and an embarrassment. The DC crowd knows this.