Inside the Beltway, the term "ethics enforcement" has almost become an oxymoron over the past decade. For this reason, it is good news to hear that FBI agents have begun interviewing people connected to the scandal surrounding Sen. John Ensign (R-NV).

So begins this blog post by CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan. In her remarks at Huffington Post, Ms. Sloan explains why Sen. Ensign's conduct needs to be fully investigated.

Click here to read the entire post -- and feel free to leave a comment if the spirit moves you.

Politico reports today that the FBI has begun interviewing witnesses in the scandal involving Sen. John Ensign (R-NV).

In light of this revelation, Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), issued a statement:

"It is not surprising that the FBI is investigating because there is reason to believe Sen. Ensign was involved in at least two felonies: conspiring to help former aide Doug Hampton violate the lobbying ban, and failing to report to the FEC the $96,000 severance payment made to Cynthia Hampton.

"The fact that the FBI is investigating makes clear that no one -- not even a powerful United States senator -- is above the law. It is time for him to resign."

For copies of the letters that CREW sent last year raising serious ethics concerns about Ensign, click here.

In this video clip, Sloan tells ABC's "Nightline" why Ensign's behavior is so troubling.

After over three years of waiting for a response, CREW finally received documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) on Wednesday related to our FOIA request from 2006. CREW had originally sent FOIA requests to the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in order to determine the details of their reporting requirements to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Oversight Board. This board provides advice to the President concerning the quality and adequacy of intelligence collection, analysis, and estimates of counterintelligence and foreign intelligence activities.

CREW was hoping to unearth records that could shine a light on the investigative activities of the CIA, FBI, and NSA and show how they have been contrary to the intelligence laws and directives which govern foreign counterintelligence and international terrorism investigations.

The investigative methods used by the Department of Defense, the NSA’s parent body, have been called into question and the NSA has recently been accused of violating U.S. laws and regulations. The Obama administration, in its efforts to maintain transparency and openness, has recently released documents to both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union about CIA investigations conducted under the anti-terrorism program during the George W. Bush administration. In June of 2009, CREW received a response to our FOIA request with the CIA for documents regarding their investigative activities. We encourage document reviewers to read the most recent documents we have received from the NSA as well as previous FOIA responses.

And don’t forget to keep checking back for new information after the holiday!

An editorial in today's New York Times makes an important point about Dick Cheney's newfound interest in transparency:

When he was vice president, Dick Cheney never acknowledged the public’s right to know anything. Now, suddenly, he has the full disclosure bug. He told Fox News this week that President Obama’s decision to release memos written by the Bush Justice Department authorizing the abuse and torture of detainees inspired him to ask the Central Intelligence Agency to release transcripts of those interrogations.

While Cheney has the "full disclosure bug" and is urging the release of transcripts, we'd like to add one more to his request:  Cheney's interview with the FBI about the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.  

As we noted yesterday, CREW made a FOIA request to the Bush administration's Department of Justice for that interview, which was denied.  We're asking the Obama administration to release it.  So far, no response.  But, since Cheney thinks releasing transcripts involving the CIA is important and appropriate, it's should now be a no-brainer to give us his FBI interview.

Last fall, when ABC broke the story that Rep. Tim Mahoney was making payments to a former mistress, CREW demanded that the House Ethics Committee hold him accountable:

Rep. Mahoney engaged in a course of conduct demonstrating a stunning abuse of his elected position. He prioritized his extramarital affair over upholding the rules and laws he swore to obey. The House Ethics Committee must hold him accountable for his numerous transgressions. And of course, Rep. Mahoney is the worst sort of hypocrite, having won the seat on a moral values platform after the Foley scandal. But if hypocrisy alone was enough to merit an ethics investigation, the ethics committee would be running a 24 hour-a-day shop.

Needless to say, we're still waiting.

ABC now reports, however, that the FBI is conducting an investigation:

The FBI has begun questioning witnesses as part of its investigation in whether outgoing Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.) violated any laws in putting his former mistress on the congressional payroll, sources familiar with the probe tell ABCNews.com.

 

The sources say that the FBI is focusing whether Mahoney may have made false statements in hiring his then mistress, Patricia Allen, in his congressional office.

 

Exactly how many people the FBI has questioned is unclear, but agents, based in West Palm Beach, flew to Washington DC earlier this month to question people who have worked with Mahoney. They have also questioned people in Florida, but the probe does not appear to have reached the stage of a grand jury.

 

An FBI official could not be reached for comment.

 

 

Mahoney's attorney declined to comment but the congressman, who admitted to having multiple affairs, has said he did not violate any laws. "My personal behavior has been unacceptable." But, he said, "I haven't violated my oath of office. I haven't broken any laws."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been aggressively pursuing public corruption.  Believing that the public has a "renewed awareness" of this issue in the wake of the scandal involving Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, the FBI office in Denver wants help from the public:

The Denver FBI wants to know whether government officials are engaged in criminal activities that violate the public's trust — such as awarding political favors in exchange for cash.

Agents want to take advantage of the public's renewed awareness of public corruption as the scandal surrounding Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich — who has denied any wrongdoing — unfolds.

"We feel like the general public needs to be aware and realize there is an avenue where they can call and e-mail complaints of public corruption if they think something going on is not quite right," said Special Agent Kathleen Wright of the Denver FBI.

Last week, the Denver FBI set up a hotline and an e-mail address for tipsters in Colorado andWyoming to leave information if they believe a public official is committing a crime.

"We encourage people to send an e-mail or leave voice-mail information so we can have an agent recontact them if we need to know some more details about what they are reporting," Wright said.

CREW has a tipline, too.

Another scathing editorial about the FBI's performance in the Foley scandal.   This one from the Miami Herald: 

In refusing last summer to investigate the e-mails that former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley sent to a former congressional page, the FBI ignored its own child-safety guidelines, says a report from the Justice Department's inspector general. The Foley e-mails given to the FBI in July 2006 by a whistle-blower group didn't contain sexually explicit references, but their language indicated behavior that the FBI warns about in A Parent's Guide to Internet Safety on its website. The agency should review how it handles complaints about public officials.

The inspector general took the FBI to task for not reacting quickly to the e-mails, which were given to the agency by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The report says the FBI also wrongly blamed CREW for not handing over additional information. Never happened, says the report.

While the agency clearly has more-pressing duties in the era of terrorism than tracking congressmen with a penchant for befriending House pages, the FBI dropped the ball.

Another slam at the FBI. This one from The St. Petersburg Times:

...[G}iven the tools at the FBI's disposal, it is unacceptable that the agency would treat the case as a hot potato to be passed from office to office. In the e-mails, Foley asks the boy his age, requests a photo and remarks that another was "in really great shape." Though those initial messages were not sexually explicit and officials concluded there was no sign of a crime at the time, the inspector general reasonably concludes that the FBI should have taken a closer look at Foley's behavior.

The inspector general found that agents bounced the e-mails from office to office as they haggled over who had responsibility for pursuing them. The Fort Pierce Republican abruptly resigned Sept. 29 following reports that he sent explicit instant messages to teenage boys. While the earlier messages may have lacked a smoking gun, they provided, as the inspector general said, "enough troubling indications on their face." At the very least the FBI should have passed its concerns to House managers or congressional watchdog agencies.

The report also noted the FBI misled the public by trying to blame a watchdog group for redacting the e-mails it passed along to the FBI. The inspector general found that the advocacy group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, had not withheld information, and that missing material was not behind the bureau's decision to drop the matter. Whether the culprit was laziness or fear or bureaucrats simply passing the buck, the FBI failed to do its job.

(Coincidentally, this same paper also had the notorious Foley e-mails well before they became public, but failed to report on the story as the Executive Editor explained last October.)

The Washington Post Editorial Board thinks the FBI "fell short" in the Foley scandal. They're right:

...[G]iven that minors were involved, the FBI should have done more. The messages were disturbing enough to the former page that he forwarded them to a congressional staffer with the comment that they were "sick" and "freaked me out." The FBI agents who looked at them concluded, variously, that they were "odd" and "inappropriate"; one who read them remembered thinking, "What a freak."

As the report by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine concluded, the e-mails "provided enough troubling indications on their face, particularly given the position of trust and authority that Mr. Foley held with respect to House pages, that a better practice for the FBI would have been to take at least some follow-up steps with regard to the e-mails" -- interviewing the former page, notifying House officials in charge of the page program or at the very least telling the group that had forwarded them to the FBI, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), that it did not plan to take any additional steps. "We are not the ethics police," the agent in charge of the cyber crimes unit told the inspector general. True, but as the report points out, the FBI's own guide to Internet safety points out that predators often "gradually seduce" their targets with attention and gifts.

All too characteristically, when Mr. Foley's misbehavior came to light, the FBI blamed its inaction on incomplete and "heavily redacted" information provided by CREW and the organization's alleged refusal to provide additional details. As the report makes clear, that was not accurate. It was the FBI's apathy, not CREW's recalcitrance, that was at fault here.

ConWebBlog examines the report on CNS about the IG report on how the FBI handled the Mark Foley investigation. LIke the Washington Times article earlier this week, the CNS report largely overlooked the criticism of the FBI's performance:

A Jan. 24 CNSNews.com article by Nathan Burchfiel on the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General report on how the FBI handled the Mark Foley matter took a strangely pro-FBI spin, burying or ignoring mistakes made by the organization. Here's Burchfiel's lead;

The Federal Bureau of Investigation acted "within the range of discretion" in deciding not to investigate sexually charged Internet conversations between former Rep. Mark Foley and a former congressional page, the Justice Department has concluded.

Critics are unhappy, however, and called Tuesday for congressional hearings into the matter.

The article continued on that tack by describing exculpatory findings regarding the FBI. It's not until the 9th paragraph is it hinted that the report contains anything critical about the FBI's handling of the case. The Washington Post, meanwhile, led its article on the report with that criticism -- that the FBI should have taken "some follow-up steps" when it learned about the emails.

Also, similar to the Washington Times article, ConWebBlog notes that CNS failed to mention the finding that the FBI misled the media:

Burchfiel's article, however, offers no mention whatsoever of the report's other major finding -- that anonymous Justice and FBI officials had falsely told the media that the group that first forwarded the Foley emails to the FBI, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW), that the messages supplied by CREW had been "heavily redacted" and that the group had refused to provide further information. In fact, according to the report, the only thing removed from the messages was the identity of the person to whom the communications had been forwarded, and that the "redactions in the e-mail did not factor into the FBI's decision to decline to investigate the matter."