Watchdog Demands Harman Ethics Probe

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Is an ethics committee investigation in Rep. Jane Harman’s future? DC-based watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics In Washington certainly thinks one is warranted, and just faxed faxed a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) requesting an investigation into Harman’s role in alleged quid-pro-quo scheme. CQ reported late Sunday that the California Democrat was caught on an National Security Agency wiretap agreeing to lobby for the reduction of charges against two alleged Israeli spies in exchange for another suspected Israeli agent’s help in convincing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) to name Harman to chairmanship of the House intelligence committee. Harman denies the allegations. “Harman deserves to be sanctioned…,’ Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, told Mother Jones. “She was willing to use a criminal investigation as a tool just to get a chairmanship. Obviously there’s political gamesmanship on Capitol Hill, but it has to end before you get to the Grand Jury’s door. That’s really beyond the pale.”

CREW also faxed a letter to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) Monday afternoon, requesting an investigation into why no charges were pursued against Harman. CQ alleged in its story that an investigation of Harman was quashed because then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wanted the powerful Democrat’s continued help defending the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. “It looks like the Justice Department dropped the case not because they didn’t have the evidence but for political reasons,” Sloan says. “It’s yet another example that [the Bush administration] would do anything to advance their agenda, that they treated the Justice system as a political tool.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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