February 4, 1999

Honorable Lamar Smith, Chairman
Honorable Howard Berman, Ranking Member
House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct
HT-2, The Capitol
U. S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

RE: The Ethics Committee's Failure to Comply with IRS Requests for Documents Produced in the Matter of Representative Newt Gingrich

As a part of the committee report In The Matter of Representative Newt Gingrich, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct ("Ethics Committee") agreed to cooperate with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requests for documents relating to certain 501(c)(3) organizations affiliated with then-Speaker Gingrich. According to the committee report,

In light of the possibility that documents which were produced to the Subcommittee during the Preliminary Inquiry might be useful to the IRS as part of its reported ongoing investigations of various 501(c)(3) organizations, the Subcommittee decided to recommend that the full Committee make available to the IRS all relevant documents produced during the Preliminary Inquiry. It is the Committee's recommendation that the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct in the 105^th Congress establish a liaison with the IRS to fulfill its recommendation and that this liaison be established in consultation with Mr. [Special Counsel James] Cole.⁽¹⁾

However, according to the IRS, in a Technical Advice Memorandum on the Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF), the Ethics Committee failed to cooperate with IRS requests for documents produced during the Preliminary Inquiry. The IRS Memorandum states:

Despite requests to the Ethics Committee, the Service has not been allowed access to the transcripts by the Ethics Committee. Therefore, we are unable to evaluate the context in which these statements were made.

We base our conclusions in this memorandum upon the facts available to us....our factual record does not include transcripts of witness statements before the Ethics Committee....part of our analysis of whether PFF had a substantial nonexempt purpose to serve private interests is the determination of the purposes for forming and operating PFF. In determining the purposes of PFF, evidence of the purposes and roles of PFF's officers and directors acting in their official capacities and of Mr. Gingrich acting in his capacity as teacher of the RAC course is relevant. Information was obtained from these persons under oath by the Ethics Committee's Special Counsel. It is precisely this information to which we have been denied access by the Ethics Committee. It is possible that if the Ethics Committee had rendered full cooperation with our examination, the transcripts might have affected our conclusion.

We do not have unofficial statements by PFF's officers and directors (internal memos, unofficial statements of officers and directors) evidencing a purpose to benefit private interests. We have considered a number of quotes from depositions of key figures reported in the Ethics Committee Report but have not been allowed access to the complete deposition. Only one quote raises a question of improper purpose, and we were unable to examine the quote in context without the complete deposition.⁽²⁾

• Why did the Ethics Committee fail to fulfill its responsibility, ratified by the full House of Representatives, to provide relevant documents to the IRS?
• By what authority did the Ethics Committee or its staff refuse the IRS document requests?
• Will the Ethics Committee release all correspondence with the IRS regarding the IRS document requests relating to the Gingrich case?
• Will the Ethics Committee release Special Counsel James Cole to provide a full and detailed description of why the Ethics Committee has not met its responsibilities to provide relevant documents to the IRS?

The Ethics Committee's failure to cooperate with IRS requests for documents seems to fit a familiar pattern. During its investigation of then-Speaker Gingrich, the Ethics Committee built a remarkable record of generosity and leniency toward Gingrich including, among other things, investigative failures and torpor, violating Ethics Committee precedents, failure to authorize outside counsel to investigate ethics complaints, the narrow mandate for Special Counsel James Cole's investigation, failure to initiate investigations based on credible and well-documented news reports, the unwillingness of the Ethics Committee to receive and evaluate documents related to the Gingrich case, failure to thoroughly investigate the activities of Joe Gaylord within the Speaker's office, failure to interview key witnesses and subpoena documents related to telecommunications entrepreneur Donald Jones's activities within the Speaker's offices, and failure to punish Gingrich for repeated violations of House Rule 45 and other standards of Congressional conduct. This record is a direct affront to citizens who want honest government.

The Ethics Committee owes an explanation to the full House of Representatives and to the public as to why it did not comply with IRS requests for documents produced in the Matter of Representative Newt Gingrich.
 

Sincerely,
 

Gary Ruskin
Director

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ENDNOTES 1. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, In The Matter of Representative Newt Gingrich, H. Rep. No. 105-1, 105^th Cong, 1^st Sess. (1997), p.166.

2. Internal Revenue Service Technical Advice Memorandum RE: Progress & Freedom Foundation. A copy of the memorandum was obtained from the Progress & Freedom Foundation website at <http://www.pff.org/IRSmemo.htm>.