Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty yesterday in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling investigation, the first lawmaker to confess to crimes in an election-year scandal that has stained the Republican-controlled Congress.
Republican leaders said Ney will be expelled from the House if he doesn’t quit by the time they return to Washington after the Nov. 7 elections.
Appearing before Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle on charges of conspiracy and making false statements, Ney acknowledged taking trips, tickets, meals and campaign donations from Abramoff in return for official actions on behalf of his clients.
Ney, Ohio Republican, faces up to 10 years in prison. The Justice Department recommended 27 months behind bars. Ney’s lawyers plan to recommend him for a Bureau of Prisons alcohol-treatment program, which dramatically could cut the time he serves behind bars.
Judge Huvelle set sentencing for Jan. 19.
Although Ney’s lawyer and the congressman promised he would resign in the next few weeks, it was not soon enough for House Republican leaders who are on the defensive because of fresh scandals in the final weeks before the midterm elections.
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, called for Ney to resign, as did White House press secretary Tony Snow, who said Ney’s criminal activity “is not a reflection of the Republican Party.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican, said he will introduce a resolution to kick Ney out of the House as soon as Congress returns to Washington.
The House ethics committee is investigating Mr. Hastert and other Republican House leaders, along with their top aides, for their handling of former Rep. Mark Foley’s sexually charged messages to teenagers who served as House pages.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, faulted Mr. Hastert and the Republican leadership for letting Ney remain on the public payroll since he signed papers in September agreeing to plead guilty. Mrs. Pelosi said House leaders “have a long pattern of protecting Republican members.”
In Ney’s home state, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett called Ney “a cancer in the Congress.”
Political corruption has hurt Republicans more than Democrats, recent AP-Ipsos polling showed. Democrats have the advantage over Republicans on the question of who would do a better job of handling corruption, 40 percent to 25 percent.
Ney is the latest in a string of once-influential men convicted in a scandal that so far has caught several lobbyists and two members of the Bush administration.
Abramoff, the Republican superlobbyist, admitted guilt in January. Two former aides to Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, the former House majority leader, have also pleaded guilty, as has Ney’s former chief of staff.
Former White House official David Safavian, who was the Bush administration’s top procurement official, was convicted of covering up his dealings with Abramoff. He is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 27.
Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, pleaded guilty in August to a misdemeanor charge for not reporting that Abramoff had given him tickets to football games and concerts.
Ney confessed his criminal acts during a half-hour session at a federal courthouse a few blocks from the Capitol, where until recently he wielded a gavel as chairman of the House Administration Committee.
Responding to each of Judge Huvelle’s 25 questions, Ney agreed that he had conspired to deprive the government of his “honest services,” a fraud-related charge often used in public corruption cases.
Ney also acknowledged making false statements on his financial disclosure forms by concealing that Abramoff and a foreign businessman were the true source of gifts Ney received.
The gifts ranged from a trip to Scotland bankrolled by Abramoff’s clients to thousands of dollars in gambling chips Ney got on two overseas junkets from foreign businessman Fouad al-Zayat, a Syrian-born aviation company owner in Cyprus.
“I allowed myself to get too comfortable with the way things have been done in Washington, D.C., for too long,” Ney said in a written statement after his court appearance.
Ney said, “I never acted to enrich myself or to get things I shouldn’t.” Details of conspiracy suggested otherwise.
The congressman admitted he gave $5,000 from one gambling trip to a staff member to carry across the border so Ney could report a lower dollar amount to customs officials.
Ney agreed to push legislation helpful to Abramoff clients including Indian tribes and a foreign beverage distiller. Ney agreed to help al-Zayat get a visa to enter the United States and a legislative exemption to laws barring the sale of U.S.-made airplanes and parts to a foreign country.
Regarding Abramoff, Ney acknowledged accepting all-expenses-paid and reduced-price trips to play golf in Scotland in August 2002, to gamble and vacation in New Orleans in May 2003 and to vacation in New York in August 2003. The total cost of all the trips — in which others, including some aides, participated — exceeded $170,000, prosecutors said. The congressman also admitted accepting meals and sports and concert tickets for himself and his staff.
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