'Nothing but a pattern': Ethics advocates alarmed by delay for House watchdog

WASHINGTON — More than three months into the 119th Congress, House leaders have not yet appointed board members of the Office of Congressional Conduct, hamstringing the ethics office and its mission.

Failure to appoint the board of the OCC — an independent, nonpartisan office that reviews allegations of misconduct against House lawmakers and staff — is alarming on its own, according to some transparency advocates. But they also see a larger trend during the second administration of Donald Trump, as other ethics and accountability bodies come under fire.

“It shows this tone that’s been set in the executive branch that officials don’t have to prioritize ethics. You see that across all three branches,” said Kedric Payne, vice president and general counsel at Campaign Legal Center and a former employee of the OCC (which was known as the Office of Congressional Ethics until lawmakers renamed it in January).

“We’re very concerned,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. “It can be seen as nothing but a pattern, and one that has real ramifications for corruption and abuse and fraud.”

Since Trump took office on Jan. 20, he has targeted many of the independent watchdogs meant to hold the federal government accountable. He quickly fired more than a dozen inspectors general, several of whom sued the administration. He ousted the heads of the Office of Government Ethics and the Office of Special Counsel. And his administration has removed officials tasked with handling Freedom of Information Act requests, an important tool for the public and the media to compel the release of documents.

In a letter sent to House members on Monday, advocates said the delay has effectively closed the OCC, and they called on leaders to act.

“When elected officials are credibly accused of unethical, corrupt, or illegal acts, the public has the right to know that such allegations will be investigated,” the letter reads.

‘It seems to be deliberate’

The ethics watchdog was formed in 2008 (as the OCE) after pressure from outside advocacy groups and in the wake of congressional scandals. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader John A. Boehner convened a special task force, whose Democratic members urged the House to create an independent body to supplement its standing Ethics Committee and ensure that lawmakers aren’t left fully alone to investigate themselves. Such a change, argued the task force’s chair, would break up the “old boy network.”

This isn’t the first time the office has been on uncertain ground. House Republicans tried to undercut it in 2017, prompting outcry and a bemused tweet from President-elect Trump himself. And in the 118th Congress, they imposed a quick turnaround for hiring staff and reinstated term limits for board members, dislodging longtime Democratic appointees in the process. That led advocates to worry the office could stall out.

Those fears were relieved when House leaders speedily filled the vacancies. But now observers say the current lapse is the longest the office has gone without a board.

“Certainly in the past with the Office of Congressional Ethics, they had a board fully constituted by February or at the latest mid-March, so this is really an unprecedented delay,” said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause. “It seems to be deliberate on the part of House Republicans and Speaker Johnson.”

“I don’t think it’s slipped anybody’s mind. I don’t know what else is in the way of the speaker making his appointments,” said David Skaggs, a former Democratic member of the House who served on the office’s board from its inception until 2021. “The Republican Conference in the House has been, over the years from time to time, reluctant to see OCE do its thing.”

NBC News first reported the delay in March. The OCC board typically consists of six members and at least two alternates and is reconstituted anew at the beginning of each Congress. Three of those members are appointed by the speaker and three are appointed by the minority leader, each in consultation with the other.

Johnson, through a spokesperson, did not respond to a request for comment. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declined to comment, but according to a source familiar with the situation, he has submitted his board nominations to the speaker’s office.

Limited scope of power

In the meantime, the office can do little other than receive complaints, Payne said. It cannot initiate any investigations without a board. And in a sign of inaction, it has yet to release its report for the fourth quarter of 2024. The last release from the office came on Jan. 2, just before the end of the 118th Congress.

Even when the OCC is fully up and running, its scope of power is limited. It doesn’t have subpoena power, and instead of reaching final conclusions about potential wrongdoing, it can refer what it finds to the House Ethics Committee for further review.

Still, the office is unpopular on both sides of the aisle because of the watchdog role it plays, Payne said.

In 2023, members of the board and the office’s longtime staff director, Omar Ashmawy, were called before a House subcommittee, where Republican members accused the office of being superfluous, overly partisan and lacking in transparency.

“The Senate does not have a corresponding entity,” said Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., who chaired the now-defunct House Administration Oversight Subcommittee. “This calls into question, if the Senate doesn’t need a similar entity, what value does OCE add to transparency and accountability that the House Ethics Committee doesn’t already provide?”

Members from both parties also expressed concern over two incidents involving Ashmawy: a 2022 charge for driving under the influence and a 2015 altercation at a bar in Pennsylvania. Ashmawy was not criminally charged in the 2015 incident but admitted to lawmakers that he may have improperly contacted investigators in the aftermath.

“Yes, I used my work email to communicate with law enforcement and other individuals involved in the investigation,” Ashmawy said during the hearing. “At the time, I believed that I was within the bounds of House Ethics rules. I realize now that I may not have been.”

Ashmawy, through an OCC spokesperson, declined to comment for this article.

Another layer of transparency

Advocates argue that the office helps House members hold themselves to a higher standard than they could manage on their own. Since many of its referral reports become public, it provides another layer of transparency, they say. Pushing back on accusations of partisanship, then-board member Michael Barnes told the subcommittee in 2023 that the office had an evenly divided track record over the years, referring allegations involving 52 Republicans and 52 Democrats to House Ethics.

Payne, Scherb and Gilbert agreed that without a functioning OCC, potential wrongdoing could fly under the radar. The House Ethics Committee typically goes after high-profile, hard-to-ignore cases, like the allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use by former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., or the various allegations of fraud by former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y.

“With an OCC that cannot yet operate, we worry that will further allow the House Ethics Committee to look the other way on ethical scandals,” Scherb said.

And in the absence of answers from House leadership, some are assuming the worst.

“I’ve been watching it, hoping that it was simply a slow process. But now it looks like there’s no process,” Payne said. “It looks like the House leadership is trying to shut down the office.”