House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) made a point of lining up an equal number of lawmakers from each side of the aisle to serve as cosponsors when joined forces on a White House ethics bill last month.
However, that careful balance quickly fell apart after three Democrats backed out of their previous commitments to support the bill — disappearing, Porter said, after the White House contacted their colleagues.
That support disappeared, she said, on the eve of the bill’s introduction, as she boarded a flight back to Washington, D.C.
“I was excited to come to Washington to present my bill. And I was proud to have found three senior Democratic co-sponsors. When I arrived, I was very disappointed to learn that these co-sponsors decided not to support the bill and had conversations with the White House,” Porter told The Hill.
The White House declined to comment on the allegation and two of the potential sponsors denied having been contacted by associates of the Biden administration.
But the episode sheds new light on the unfolding effort to secure bipartisan support for a bill that would mark a major legislative achievement for Comer — the Republican leading the charge to investigate the Biden family.
Lawmakers and other sources who spoke to The Hill said the three Democrats — Reps. Ro Khanna (Calif.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.) and Kweisi Mfume (Md.) — abandoned their plans to sign the bill because of concerns about both . its content and the way it could be used against the Biden family’s entry into the campaign.
“It’s a very partisan tool to bash the president, as opposed to a serious bipartisan ethics reform effort,” Khanna told The Hill when asked about his decision to abandon the project.
Khanna said he changed his mind after seeing “the content and then seeing some of the statements that I thought would be used.”
“I don’t think it was bipartisan enough,” he said, adding later, “but I made the decision independently. Nobody called me.
Mfume said he “didn’t get a real sense that there would be enough bipartisan support for the project.”
“I wanted to see a bigger bipartisan effort. I believed there would be and when there wasn’t, I just said, ‘Let me out,’” he told The Hill.
But he added that he had received “no – absolutely no” resistance to the bill from the White House or allies.
Krishnamoorthi declined to comment.
Still, the ethics legislation received a lukewarm reception last month from the White House, which said it was always willing to consider Comer’s “brilliant ideas.” On the other hand, he emphasized President Biden’s existing disclosures and commitment to ethics.
Comer and Porter’s bill would impose a series of disclosure requirements on both presidents and vice presidents, including any foreign income earned by themselves or their family members.
It would also require top executives, once elected, to share their tax returns and disclose any conflicts of interest.
While it represented a step forward for Oval Office transparency, some elements of the project appear to be inspired by Comer’s investigation into the Biden family.
For example, it would need to detail any loans made to family members and document when immediate family members join the president on Air Force One, including whether the trip was for business purposes. Both situations were raised by Republicans after Biden, while he was vice president, lent his brother money and had his son accompany him on trips.
Comer and Porter have been circulating like a political odd couple, holding joint interviews about their legislation and promoting what they hope can be a bipartisan vehicle for imposing greater oversight on the White House.
Porter said he hoped the substance of this implementation would help calm Democratic concerns that the bill would target the Biden family.
“Sir. Comer and I have done extensive publicity about the project. And [during] all that publicity…both Mr. Comer and I tried very hard to make it clear that this is not about any future president, but about having the right set of rules to restore trust in the executive,” she said.
“The truth is that this is about restoring trust in the government. Full stop.”
Comer said little when approached by The Hill about the rapid loss of Democratic sponsors on the legislation, throwing up his hands as he said, “I’m trying to pass a bill right now.”
But he said he organized potential Republican sponsors of the bill among the committee’s subcommittee chairs.
“I told my Republican members that I would get as many cosponsors as Katie did, because I want this to be truly bipartisan, because if it’s going to become law, it’s going to have to be bipartisan, right? So I said, ‘If you get four, I’ll get four. If you don’t get any, I won’t get any,’” Comer said.
Comer described the bill as a “sincere” effort, which he promised from the first days he took the reins of the Oversight Committee.
Democrats do not see Comer as sincere, but rather as Congress’s most prominent supporter of the effort to impeach Biden.
It’s an investigation they have criticized from the start, but which has been increasingly ridiculed as Republicans have failed to find a smoking gun to demonstrate that Biden took any official action to benefit his family.
Still, Comer promised that the investigation would lead to legislation to address influence peddling — spawning the proposal he introduced with Porter last month.
Tensions surrounding the bill rose as soon as it was released.
Comer and Porter’s plans to debut their bill spurred Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, to introduce his own legislation targeting foreign money the night before its implementation.
“When I heard that President Comer was introducing his bill, I thought it would be a good time to present our proposal,” he told The Wall Street Journal at the time.
Raskin’s bill takes a different approach to dealing with foreign money, strengthening the Emoluments Clause, which requires the president to obtain permission from Congress before accepting any funding from foreign governments.
His legislation would add criminal sanctions for those who skirt constitutional requirements, something he says would address former President Trump’s failure to do so while in office.
Raskin criticized Porter and Comer’s bill, calling it “weak” and arguing that it should apply to candidates as well — noting that Trump never released his own taxes.
Meanwhile, Porter previously described Raskin’s bill as “punitive.”
Despite the rocky launch, some Democrats haven’t ruled out supporting Comer and Porter’s bill.
“The main issue in my mind is that when he was in the White House, Donald Trump crossed a really important line. He has raised millions of dollars from foreign governments and we need to reestablish the wall of separation between American political leaders and foreign government money,” Raskin said.
“The proposal that Katie Porter put together with President Comer is a disclosure bill, which is acceptable, but it doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t apply to candidates. And if it applied to candidates, that’s something I could look at in conjunction with the emoluments legislation we so desperately need.”
Khanna, who pushed for a ban on stock trading for members of Congress, also said he could support the bill “with appropriate amendments.”
In the meantime, Porter remains hopeful that some colleagues will join his efforts as the project progresses.
“Our job in Congress is to pass legislation that improves our government. This legislation does that. It is not to punish or reward friends or enemies. This is about passing legislation that improves the lives of the American people and improves our democracy, and this legislation passes that test. That’s why I’m proud to support him,” Porter said.
“I think that’s the question people should be asking themselves, not ‘Who is the sponsor?’ or ‘Who wrote this?’ but instead, ‘Would this legislation make our democracy stronger?’ And the answer is a clear and unconditional yes.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
