Below is my column in the New York Post on the news reports that outgoing Rep. Susan Wild (D. Pa.) was the person who violated the rules (and oath) of the House Ethics Committee and leaked information to the media this month. The information concerned the investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.). Wild embodies the collapsing ethical foundation of the Democratic Party as members struggle to justify the Biden pardon.
Here is the slightly expanded column:
“You must be wary of those seeking to use their influence and their expertise to wrongful ends.” Those words were spoken at the George Washington Law School commencement ceremony two years ago by the recently defeated Rep. Susan Wild (D., Pa.).
This week, the words took on a new meaning after Wild was accused of leaking information from the House Ethics Committee. Wild embodies a party that is in an ethical and political free fall this month.
If news reports are accurate, Wild appears to have given our students a curious ethical lesson in how not to be a lawyer or legislator.
Wild was fighting to release the report of the investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.). When Gaetz decided to withdraw from Congress, the report was not released. That is when details from the committee were leaked to the media, and the press reported that “two sources said Wild ultimately acknowledged to the panel that she had leaked information.”
Keep in mind that this is the House Ethics Committee, and she is a member. She is also a member of Congress who took an oath as part of the panel’s rules that “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will not disclose, to any person or entity outside the Committee on Ethics, any information received in the course of my service with the Committee, except as authorized by the Committee or in accordance with its rules.”
Wild herself has not publicly confirmed or denied the alleged leaking of the information.
If the reports are true, Wild knowingly violated an oath that she took not to release information from the Ethics Committee because she was unhappy with losing votes on the release of information.
Her office seems to have shrugged off media inquiries. As in the past controversy, Wild has avoided public comment on the report that she was the leaker.
This controversy speaks to more than one unethical former representative. This month, we have seen Democrats line up to support one of the most unethical and abusive uses of presidential pardon power in history. President Biden not only pardoned his son but pardoned him for any crimes over a decade, including some that many felt implicated President Biden himself.
The President issued the pardon after repeatedly lying to the public when he was a candidate that he would never do so. In the previous election, Biden lied to the public about not having met Hunter Biden’s clients or having knowledge of his dealings in the influence-peddling scandal.
Biden’s lack of ethics surprised no one. However, even today, the support that he received from Democratic leaders over the pardon has been shocking. Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate majority whip, even called it a “labor of love.”
Indeed, much of the corruption in Washington is a labor of love, from nepotism to influence peddling to corrupt pardons. Indeed, faced with overwhelming opposition of the public to the Biden pardon, Democratic members look like the comical choreography of “Prisoners of Love” from the movie The Producers. (“Oh, you can lock us up and lose the key; But hearts in love are always free!”).
The distorted view of ethics in the Democratic Party was vividly on display during an embarrassing moment recently at the White House when Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that a poll showed “64% of the American people agree with the pardon — 64% of the American people. So, we get a sense of where the American people are on this.”
That poll actually showed the majority of Americans opposed the pardon. Yet, it was 64 percent of Democrats who favored a president giving his own son a pardon.
It is all about the ends rather than the means in today’s politics of rage.
The 2022 words of Wild were particularly poignant because they were used as part of a false attack made by Wild at my own school. In a speech to the law students on living an ethical life as a lawyer, Wild accused me of testifying falsely in the Trump impeachment that only criminal acts are impeachable after saying the opposite in my testimony in the Clinton impeachment.
The only problem is that Wild’s statement was demonstrably and undeniably false. I testified in both the Clinton and Trump impeachments that an impeachable offense need not be an actual crime. Ironically, Wild’s own Democratic colleagues and later the House managers in the Senate Trump trial repeatedly cited my testimony on that very point.
None of this matters in the Wild world of Democratic ethics. It is very simple. Whatever Democrats are attempting cannot be “wrongful ends.” More importantly, it is the ends, not the means, that are the measure of ethics. Since they are only fighting for what is right, the ends justify the means from cleansing ballots of Republicans (including Trump) to supporting a massive censorship system to ignoring court decisions to count invalid votes.
It is the same sense of ethics that led someone at the Supreme Court to leak a draft of the Dobbs decision. Even though the leak shattered court ethical rules and traditions, the leaker was lionized by many on the left.
For years, the “by any means necessary” wing has dominated the Democratic Party. Ironically, the collapsing of the party’s credibility with the public has left little to show beyond a litany of unethical means used to achieve unrealized ends.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
We need ‘age limits’ for Women in Congress (Govenment), Rep. Susan Wild (D. Pa.) is 67 years old (DOB 1957).
Liz Cheney 58 (1966), Gretchen Whitmer 53 (1971), …
Middle Middle-Age for these Broads is like 38, So they’re ‘Over, Over-the-Hill’ . Scorned by Life and bitter like Hillary, never enough is never enough, they want it ALL. Face it, She can’t Cook, She can’t Clean, but She can be mean-on-mean when it comes to who’s setting the rules around here.
Time for the Senior Center or that over 55 Community, or just releasing Ms. Wild into the Wild. on the spring Ice Flows.
Lock’em all up Donny, D.C. is a Man’s World 😉
And what good is a Bernie sanders, a joe biden or a Jerry nadler? They wouldn’t make it one day in the real world – they have been parasites on the taxpayers all their lives and have done far more damage. Term limits…for all
I generally believe greater government transparency is preferred rather than less. Especially for an import, powerful, high profile job like Attorney General.
I don’t know if these Ethics Committee proceedings are fair or not. After the Trump impeachments and how Pelosi conducted the biased and unfair J6 hearings, I have concluded government “investigations” are little more than hyper partisan witch hunts and taxpayer funded partisan infomercials.
But if my cynicism is misplaced and the ethics investigation into Gaetz was fairly conducted, meaning Gaetz was given the opportunity to present evidence and explain the ethical lapses he’s been accused of, then I think the Republicans were wrong to not release the full report. If it was a fair investigation, the report should have been released IN FULL to the Senate and the public so the Senate could weigh it as part of the confirmation process.
But for a Democrat to leak only parts of the report – presumably the most damaging and salacious – is dirty. Of course she allegedly leaked what she did AFTER she lost re-election. So she knew her own poor ethical judgment would go uninvestigated and unsanctioned.
It’s just easier to assume that they are all swamp creatures and then we can celebrate when we find one of them that actually has a righteous moral core. Most of them have the moral core of a used car salesman.
Moral and ethical decline is all around us, and isn’t limited to one party. As many as 30% of Americans now see political competition as a cage deathmatch where the ends justify the means. Dwindling numbers of adults understand civics rules such as avoiding ad-hominem styles of political argument. Lying and warping the truth to get your way?….this has become the norm in the public square. Heck, in his book The Indispensable Right, JT unabashedly argues that deceptive manipulation in political speech should at most be subjected to counter-speech, and not challenged with lawsuits such as the Constitution allows for defamation.
It’s been a steady erosion by a thousand cuts. Recall how John McCain’s 2000 primary campaign in South Carolina was destroyed by Lee Atwater’s telephone push poll:
“”Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?”
McCain claimed that this campaign tactic was “libel”, but Sullivan v. NYT and the snail-paced torts system gave hime no legal means to correct the sleazy, manipulative process deployed on behalf of George W. Bush. Fast forward to 2020, and the bold-faced falsehood about Hunter’s laptop pushed out by Biden, Blinken, Morrell, CIA, and sympathetic tech and media — which post-election polling suggested had enough temporary “juice” to tilt the election outcome.
The moral rectitude of the citizenry is the backbone of the free society our Founders envisioned. They would not be optimistic if they could see the ethical lapses that now pass the expectation-test. They would not be impressed to see a leading Constitutional law professor claiming that duping the electorate to obtain political power is just one ugly dimension of “free speech” we should accept.
Moral and ethical decline is all around us, and isn’t limited to one party.
Democrats are saved because there’s at least one instance of ethical decline by Republicans (somewhere).
Ah! The feeble moral equivalencies that California Soviet Democrats are so famous for, eh pbinca?
Can’t overwhelmingly be just one party? Particularly the most infamous ethical turpitude?
Give us your impressions of the Republican ethical declines similar to these (particularly those which originated with your fellow California Democrats).
– the first Trump impeachment by Nancy Pelosi for Trump allegedly doing a Joe Biden style quid pro quo with Ukraine.
– the second Trump impeachment by Nancy Pelosi AFTER he was out of office.
– the Schiff lead Soviet style intelligence committee inquiry into the “Trump Russia Dossier”
– the Clinton/Obama/Biden/DNC illegally commissioned and paid for “Trump Russia Dossier”, written by Russian and British spies.
– the J6 Commission – again a creation and orchestrated by California’s favorite Democrat, Nancy Pelosi
Just start with just those five, pbinca, and remind everyone here of all the ethical conduct of Republicans that are pretty much of the same magnitude of those.
Or instead, once again stay silent after posting that, and hope we don’t believe our lying eyes.
Not a lot to say. The Democratic Party, at this point in time, is without ethics, without effective leaders, without a sense of what the people of America want, without a respect for what this country has built over 2 centuries , without even a sense of right and wrong.
It was the Democratic Party apparatus that conceived the 3 show trials for Trump in NYC, indicted one man for fending off and killing a criminal on the subway while at the same time not indicting a man for fending off and killing a criminal on the subway but who was the proper race. The only good thing in this unseemly affair was the jury which recaptured a sense of Justice by acquitting the second man.
And now they hail the killer of a man walking down the street who ran an insurance company.
They have no compunction about mutilating children for a false ideology and a mental health disorder. They have a rogue Billionaire who finances the campaigns of rogue DA’s who systematically destroy the sense of justice and law in the large cities of America.
They have an ex-president who insults people of his own party and his own race because they have the audacity to start thinking for themselves .
This same ex-president helped build the hospital-insurance complex that is breaking the bank for many Americans and their employers because his promised Unaffordable Care Act failed to control any cost at all. And it was apparent from the first that the unaffordable care act would not act as promised but the captive media took no interest in researching the claims and lack of substance of the act.
A soon to be ex President who was intellectually and ethically a cripple when elected but was obviously the dullest tack in the room and they covered for him and now in his last days he is trying to destroy what he had not yet destroyed.
So yeah, I have a real problem with understanding why this PARTY still exists.
The Democratic Party, The Southern Poverty Law Center, The Soros boys (father and son) and the rest of their ilk are destroying the fabric of America. Time for them to be gone.
If what moderates that still exist in the Democratic Party look at Trump dispassionately they would see a moderate with populist tendencies. He is not a wacko ultra far right John Birch Society figure. He uses some right wing tools and others that are less right wing and more center. If those moderates slid to the Republican Party for 10 years we could cripple and maybe eliminate from power the left wing plague that seeks to destroy the country.
And They Are Trying To Destroy The Country.
Excellent summary! Trump is very nearly everything a truly progressive person would want in a President. Add, to what you said, all the censorship and capture of the legacy press and academia.
GEB,
Great comment. While everything you point out is correct, I take a degree of comfort that with this election, we have turned a corner and the leftist Democrat party is on the demise. Their woke policies are toxic to their party so much so even their own party members have said it out loud.
100% agree but can someone please explain why, despite all of the above, the “leftist Democrat Party” still has tens of millions of supporters? Are there that many Americans who are evil to the core? Or are there that many Americans who are that stupid? I can’t think it could be one of these two reasons, so there must be others.
100% agree but can someone please explain why, despite all of the above, the “leftist Democrat Party” still has tens of millions of supporters? Are there that many Americans who are evil to the core? Or are there that many Americans who are that stupid? I can’t think it could be one of these two reasons, so there must be others.
They are Jewish
Oh crap. another anti-semite. BEGONE foul cretin! Your kind has no place in our society.
I seem to recall large groups of “Jews For Trump” at Trump rallies. Otherwise, anti-semite, get lost.
Shadow,
Our leftist friends who comment here on the good professor’s blog do prove they are either truly stupid or truly brainwashed. Many of them are non-thinking, no critical thinkers who watch MSM and blindly believe whatever MSM tells them. Even when it has been proven MSM has lied to them for years, they double down on the MSM lies.
While all that may be true, the Democratic presidential nominee received over 70M votes. When I grew up, we would call them “Yellow Dog Democrats”. But given the shear numbers I think that there seems to be evidence that a sizeable part of the American electorate will overlook shady ethics with the expectation of something positive or negative.
My question is who is watching the shredding machine? Why do people believe that Kash Patel or any new leader will find past information when they arrive in the building?
Nothing about liberals’ unethical and illegal activities has changed over the decades, except for the magnitude and audacity of their fraud. Their immoral, fraudulent and incompetent methods have been covered by a smoke screen provided by their complicit, colluding and unethical mainstream media.
The magnitude and audacity of their acts have allowed the most unwary and ardent Dem followers to finally discover what others have known for years.
Were it not for the complicit biased media, liberals could not have reached these high peaks of fraud. Thanks Leslie Stahl.
Govt. documents are stored on servers, as well as printed on paper. The shredding machine isn’t going to scrub the official servers, and those in charge of the servers are not going to violate federal law to destroy e-documents.
“. . . . .those in charge of the servers are not going to violate federal law to destroy e-documents.”
Hillary and her colleagues, and consultants, had no problem doing that and they seem to have gotten away with it.
I find it hard to believe that even 64% of democrats could support the Hunter pardon. They must be misinformed or uninformed of the Biden Family influence peddling scheme and tax avoidance plan. Surely if these taxpayers knew that they were paying taxes while Mr. “pay your fair share” Biden was not paying his fair share via family “loans” that swirled among family members resulting in no taxes paid, they would no longer support this man and his ridiculous pardon. Perhaps someday we’ll all know more about this even if Hunter escapes. I also expect more Biden family pardons. They seem to be floating pardons for all in an attempt to normalize their special pardons for family.
Biden did excel at one thing: according to today’s WSJ, Biden has surpassed the Obama administration’s record of 95,894 pages of new rules and regulations! He is expected to exceed 100,000 pages added to the Federal Register by the end of his term. These include DEI and green energy regulations, both of which are regarded by all as wonderful additions to our lives and the pursuit of happiness. “Biden’s milestone, though, still underscores the expanding scope of federal intervention. Biden’s policies reflected a sharp departure from Trump-era efforts to streamline regulation.”
I know that he’s trying to shovel money out the door before he finally exits. Can’t happen soon enough!
Forgot to mention — good article! It’s wild that Wild thought that the ethics oath only applies to others and that her need to reveal trumped any oath that she took.
They do what they do because they face no penalty. Now they speak of pardons for anything they’ve done or will do. The American people are treated like morons.
Insulting behavior seems to be the norm in Washington. People seem to have developed a tolerance for political arrogance. How can we get rid of the democratic/ republican dichotomy, include the libertarian component in our thought and have a government that we look to for guidance rather than looking for means to avoid it? The ends and means of the controlling parties are in such disarray that no-one approves of either of them. We need a solution to the corruption. Let me think, how did they deal with Buchanan and Harding?
Well, perhaps the Democrats are right, and a fair number of Americans are morons. And imbeciles and cretins. Look how many of our fellow citizens voted for “Que mala!”
Congresswoman Wild demonstrates the consequences of a society with no consequences!
Right? It is really time that the scales fall from our eyes, and we realize that “ethics” transparency” etc. are just psy-op buzzwords that never meant anything to the “leaders” who evoke these phrases. It is all just BS to keep the masses brainwashed.
I’ve been going back in time, listening to Matt Taibbi and Walter Kim’s America This Week. The episode I just listened to was originally aired right after the second Trump assassination attempt. The guys play a clip of Peter Doucy asking KJP whether, in the wake of the assassination attempt, she and the administration had any plans to moderate their rhetoric about Trump – since continuing to refer to him as a “threat” [to democracy] could trigger more attempts on his life.
KJP’s response was essentially, “How dare you?!” with a side of “YOU’RE the dangerous one for even asking this question!” But the way she expressed it was exactly what you’re talking about: “this administration has always denounced all forms of political violence.”
Nothing about what they’ve done – lots and lots about what they’ve said.
That Attorney General Merrick Garland is provided friendly cover and escapes the same levels of criticism for his complete lack of ethics (and crimes) in that office from Professor Turley, demonstrates that “Nobody Is Above Criticism” is also a hypocritical non-entity in the Washington DC Democrat lawyers in politics profession.
Only believers in a “true faith” are able to function psychologically when faced with circumstances, such as Wild’s alleged, that would drive all others into such paroxysms of cognitive dissonance that a catatonic state would be the only possible response. If only. And so, which element in the above assertion is palpably wrong?
They applaud the cold-blooded murder of a disfavored-category person in the streets, lament the exoneration of a public-spirited hero, violate solemn oaths when it suits them, fight tooth and nail to cover for serial liars, and yet, Professor, I cannot help but suspect that you are still one of them. The party you once knew is long gone. Give it up.
Professor Turley covers for all his fellow Democrat lawyers that are instrumental in most of the lawfare and violations of American’s civil rights that he makes good coin writing about.
You will never see a column from him excoriating the friend and fellow colleague of the Washington DC Bar Association he admires so much, Attorney General Merrick Garland.
That is reserved for lesser Democrat lawyers like defeated House member Susan Wild. Oh, and Trump for “ill-advised comments”.
Professor Turley is part of the coverup of Democrat utter lack of morals, ethics and principals. Which makes him part of the problem.
“Professor Turley is part of the coverup of Democrat utter lack of morals, ethics and principals. Which makes him part of the problem.”
When the source of your sustenance is rooted in the Swamp, it likely makes it more difficult to truly enable the draining process.
I read with great interest your columns on a variety of subjects. I would like to read with great interest your thoughts on consequences and repercussions for any of these ethical violations.. are there any from a legal perspective? Breaking an oath of office seems pretty important..
Democrats and ethics is an oxymoron; the two terms should never be used adjacent to one another in the same sentence.
And il Trumpo is the paragon of ethics!
Hahahaha.
So, you were never taught that two wrings don’t make a right? You completely give up any claim to the moral high ground with this comment.
“Wrongs”
Your point?
Wally’s in for the moral equivalency win today.
Because in Wally World where the Democrat Borg exists, there is not a single bit of difference between President Ten Percent and the Biden crime partnership and Trump.
“Because in Wally World where the Democrat Borg exists, there is not a single bit of difference between President Ten Percent and the Biden crime partnership and Trump.”
Actually, I believe that in Wally World, Biden and his corrupt family and colleagues are all emphatically exempt from accountability for any and all ethical lapses, solely because he fancies that they stand on the same side of some imaginary line as he does. Criticism is only to be directed at opponents. That is why idiots like Wally want to revoke free speech in the name of eliminating “misinformation”. It is all about controlling the narrative so that never (or at most, seldom) a discouraging word should be heard (apologies the Brewster Higley).
Like jumbo shrimp, military intelligence, Democrat’s ethics.
Until we see members of the ruling class on both sides of the aisle held accountable for violating rules and laws then unfortunately the circus will continue.
Very good column. It’s a sad state of affairs that all politicians and Democrat politicians in particular have sunk to this level. As long as we allow what effectively is a ruling class, members of which have no productive skills, we will be burdened with corrupt politicians. Term limits now!!!
Maybe I’m biased but it seems to me that it is the left that plays more of the “win at any cost” game. The professor cites the SCOTUS leak, which was of course from the left. This leak was from the left.
The J6 Committee was pretty drastic.
The Russia Collusion hoax was drastic.
Lying to a FISA Court, drastic.
Searching an Ex President’s home, drastic.
Having the DOJ coordinate with Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg and Letitia James, drastic.
The judges Erdogan, Merchan and Chutkin, drastic. Paying or supporting a 30 year old sex assault claim, drastic.
Now please point out the actions on the right that equal the above,
@hullbobby. All of the instances you list have several things in common.
First, they were all engineered or directed by lawyers allegedly in the public service period of their professional careers.
Second, they were all Democrats while in engaged in that alleged public service to the citizens of this country.
Third, the majority of them are Professor Turley’s colleagues, members of the same Washington DC Bar Association.
In many instances you list, the person at the DoJ involved with all of this is the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, who Professor Turley has repeatedly told us he admires and has a great deal of respect for.
Any guesses why Professor Turley is happy to savage this defeated congresswoman, Susan Wild, for her lack of ethics for this leak and her unfair and untruthful comments towards him at his law school?
But has yet to similarly savage his fellow bar association member and Democrat lawyer Attorney General Garland for ANYTHING he has done in the last four years?
Not a sentence about what looks to observers as a complete lack of ethics, not to mention quite probably felonies like perjuring himself to Congress while under oath?
Professor Turley has ethical shortcomings just as much as this fellow lawyer of his, the defeated Susan Wild who leaked this information and who is now headed out the door.
Perhaps Professor Turley’s Washington DC Bar Association doesn’t have a Professional Code Of Ethics that lawyers like him, Garland, Comey, Mueller, Lynch, Yates, etc commit to follow.
If so, then it is understandable that they can turn a blind eye to their fellow members violating any ethical norms that a reasonable person would assume they would follow.
What perjury?
Just come right out and make the claim: “AG Garland never perjured himself to Congressional committees while being questioned under oath.”
“Professor Turley has repeatedly told us he admires [Garland] and has a great deal of respect for.”
You’re lying by exaggeration and by omission. Here’s the title of just one of JT’s articles on Garland: “The Utter Failure of Merrick Garland.”
Is any Democrat politician honorable and trustworthy?
Only if Situational Ethics is honorable.
No!
When I was growing up, I always had trouble understanding the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The reason I could not understand there could be a city of wickedness. I was surrounded by decency, even in the Milwaukee of yesteryear. Today, I do understand. There are many such cities and even one political party that celebrates lawlessness/lawfare, sexual frenzy of all sorts, lack of ethics of any type, and vast expenditures of people’s money on “social experiments”. This example of leaking information by Rep. Susan Wild (D. Pa.) is just some extra proof.
What you say, is the real reason for our current state of affairs – we have become an evil people. Trump can fix some things, but not that.
Ethics died in an environment where there has been no accountability for the Democrat Party for many years. The expectation that there there will be no price to pay and possibly something to gain by unethical behavior feeds the rot in the party and the decline of trust in our government.
Thank you, Professor.
J