(PatrioticPost.com)- A Democratic member of the House is facing allegations of bribery.
Marie Newman, from Illinois, may soon face an investigation from the House Ethics Committee after allegations surfaced that she might have offered one of her rivals a job so she wouldn’t have to face a challenge in the Republican primary.
The New York Post reported recently that Newman offered a job in the congressional office to Iymen Hamman Chehade so that he wouldn’t wage a challenge against her for a spot in Congress.
The Post reported that the job would’ve paid Chehade, a professor at the Columbia College and Art Institute of Chicago, up to $140,000 annually starting in January of 2021.
The Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog, reported that it found “substantial reason to believe” the professor was offered the job as a bribe. He later sued for breach of contract after he wasn’t hired for the job.
That case, though, has been settled.
But the report issued by the OCE read:
“At the start of her 2020 campaign, Representative Newman made Mr. Chehade certain promises about future employment in her congressional office. Those promises were reduced to a contract signed by both parties.
“In 2021, after Representative Newman did not hire Mr. Chehade, he sued to enforce the contract, claiming that he decided not to run for the 2020 congressional seat in reliance of her promise to hire him as a foreign policy advisor and either District Director or Legislative Director in her congressional office.”
Those documents revealed that Newman and a team of attorneys for her “acknowledged that her contract was violative of House employment and federal contracting rules.” That was included in a motion filed on her behalf that asked for Chehade’s case against her to be dismissed.
One of Newman’s lawyers, Brian Svoboda, argued in his filing that the finding from the OCE “fails to mention that Representative Newman came from a business background in startups, where it was common to seek employees for positions that did not yet exist, with organizations that did not yet exist and may not exist for even two years.”
The argument, apparently, was that Newman was ignorant to the rules of Congress. It’s not a great approach in most cases, and one that isn’t likely to look too good to many people.
It’s one of the main reasons why the OCE voted unanimously to find there was a reason to believe that Newman “may have promised federal employment to a primary opponent for the purpose of procuring political support, as Business Insider tweeted recently.
The case is now headed to the House Ethics Committee, which will conduct a full review and ultimately decide if there should be any punishment.
It’s the second time this week that OCE recommended a full investigation of a member of the House. On Monday, the group recommended an investigation of Representative Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado, claiming he misused resources and “solicited or accepted improper gifts from subordinates.”
