Word: wrighting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Ethics is all the rage in Washington these days, as Speaker of the House Jim Wright can testify. This week the House Ethics Committee will release a 450- page report summing up a ten-month investigation of Wright's alleged wrongdoing. A vocal minority of Republicans, led by G.O.P. whip Newt Gingrich, predict that the inquiry will result in Wright's censure, removal as Speaker or maybe even expulsion. But in the end he is likely to hang on to his job because this is an argument not about right and wrong but about the peculiar ethics rules...
...Wright investigation began last June when Republicans, stung by the improprieties of Mike Deaver and Ed Meese, set out to make sleaze a bipartisan issue. As the highest-ranking Democrat, Wright, whose slicked-back hair, caterpillar eyebrows and leering grin give him the look of a wheeler-dealer, was a good target. After revelations of an unusual deal in which a Texas publisher paid Wright 55% royalties -- three or four times the usual rate -- for a collection of the Speaker's speeches and anecdotes, Common Cause and 72 Republicans asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate...
...million probe unearthed numerous allegations, many of which have been discarded. The committee found that Wright's heavy-handed intervention with federal officials on behalf of failing Texas savings and loan associations was no more than what other Texas Congressmen were doing. His intercession with Government officials and Egypt's Anwar Sadat to help a Texas oil-and-gas company was also found to be all in a day's work for the average member...
That leaves the committee to decide on two questions that are, at the least, embarrassing to the Speaker. One is whether Wright's financial dealings with Fort Worth developer George Mallick violated House rules. The other is whether Wright's sweetheart royalty deal was designed to get around congressional limits on outside income...
Mallick, who has known the Speaker for some 30 years, hired Wright's wife Betty in 1979 as an adviser. The job description was hazy, but the salary was $18,000 a year. Perks included a rent-free apartment and a Cadillac. In 1981, for the same salary and benefits, Betty Wright went to work for Mallightco, an investment company that the Wrights had formed with Mallick and his wife. Betty Wright also borrowed $75,000 from Mallightco. After she stopped working for the company in 1984, the Wrights paid $21.67 per diem for the apartment when they used...