DeLay says foes seek to shut ethics panel

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay accused Democrats of shutting down the chamber’s ethics committee to prevent him from being exonerated of the ethics accusations against him.

“The only way I can be cleared is through the ethics committee, so they don’t want one,” Mr. DeLay said yesterday in an interview with editors and reporters of The Washington Times in his office at the Capitol. He also offered a second reason why Democrats want the ethics committee to be hobbled.

“One of their best friends, [Rep.] Jim McDermott, is being investigated, and they don’t want him to be kicked out of Congress,” Mr. DeLay said. “I mean, this guy has been found guilty — guilty by a court of law — and they don’t want an ethics committee.”

Mr. McDermott was the top Democrat on the ethics committee in 1997 when he leaked to the New York Times an illegally recorded tape of a Republican congressman’s cell-phone conversation.

Mr. DeLay was admonished by the House ethics committee last year for his fundraising tactics and use of government authority.

He said he has offered to provide the ethics committee complete documents related to recent accusations against him, but he suggested that the ranking Democrat on the committee — Rep. Alan B. Mollohan of West Virginia — was ignoring his offer.

The latest accusations involve Mr. DeLay’s relationship with former casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation for payments he received from various American Indian casinos. Mr. Delay, Texas Republican, said he is innocent of any charges against him.

Questions about Mr. Delay also have been raised regarding an investigation into a Texas political action committee that has ensnared some of the congressman’s associates.

“I know I have been watched and investigated probably more than even Bill Clinton,” he said. “They can’t find anything, so they’re going back to my childhood, going to my family, going to things that happened eight years ago. There’s nothing there.”

Mr. DeLay also dismissed concerns that Republican support for him has softened this week, suggested by the call from Rep. Christopher Shays, Connecticut Republican, to step down and a statement by Sen. Rick Santorum, a high-level Pennsylvania Republican, that Mr. DeLay “should come forward” about his actions.

“Listen, if I didn’t have any support, I’d have been gone a long time ago,” he said. “You need to talk to the members, but my sense is they understand what this is. They’re looking at the charges and they’re just shaking their heads.”

As for Mr. Santorum’s comments, Mr. DeLay said the senator did the right thing.

“There is nothing wrong with what he said,” he said. “He did not attack me, nor did he remove himself from me.”

Asked if he had ever crossed the line of ethical behavior, Mr. DeLay said: “‘Ever’ is a very strong word. Let me start out by saying, you can never find anything that I have done for personal gain. Period.”

Mr. DeLay also lashed out at newspapers and magazines that have published what he said were “old news” stories about his foreign travel, the structure of his political action committee and his relationships to lobbyists. He criticized the New York Times in particular, whose op-ed page actively sought a major Republican to write a piece critical of Mr. DeLay.

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