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Coalition of civic organizations and academics sent a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ethics and to the House leadership calling on the committee to respect established rules of procedure in handling a complaint regarding member and staff travel to Azerbaijan. The letter http://www.citizen.org/documents/azerbaijan-letter-house-ethics-committee.pdf is published on the website of Public Citizen, a U.S.-based nonprofit consumer advocacy organization.

Following an extensive investigation by the U.S. Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) into the propriety of a privately sponsored trip for 10 House members and staff to Azerbaijan, the House Ethics Committee closed the investigation – finding that no members or staff violated ethics rules – and refused to release the findings of the OCE investigation as prescribed under the ethics process. It is imperative that OCE findings be publicly released so that the public can discern whether the actions of the Ethics Committee are justified, a statement published on Public Citizen website says.

The letter is signed by the Campaign Legal Center, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Demand Progress, Democracy 21, the National Legal & Policy Center and Public Citizen as well as scholars Thomas Mann, Norm Ornstein and James Thurber.

“This decision is especially concerning because the Committee itself played a decisive role in approving the Members’ travel to Azerbaijan,” the letter says. “The Ethics Committee should immediately release to the public the OCE findings to return to compliance with House rules.”

Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at the advocacy group Public Citizen, told Foreign Policy http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/26/public-advocates-accuse-house-ethics-committee-of-undermining-house-ethics/?wp_login_redirect=0 that it was the first time the Ethics Committee has not released an OCE report on active members of Congress. “This failure by the ethics committee to release the OCE report can fundamentally undermine OCE,” he said.

The Office of Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.), the only member who took part in Baku trip and also sits on the Ethics Committee, did not answer Foreign Policy’s questions about why the report has not been made public.

In May 2015, The Washington Post published a story about the state oil company of Azerbaijan, SOCAR, secretly funding an all-expenses-paid trip to a May 2013 conference in Baku (“U.S.-Azerbaijan Convention: Vision for the Future”) for 10 members of Congress and 32 staff members. Three former top aides to President Obama appeared as speakers at the event. The lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000.

Related:
The Washington Post: State Oil Company of Azerbaijan secretly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on US Congressmen

ANCA insists on release of report on SOCAR’s funding of US Congressmen’s trip to Azerbaijan

Albuquerque Journal: Pro-Azerbaijan lobbyists in US do not register officially and introduce ‘absurd’ resolutions

The New York Times: Congressmen traveled to Baku with freebies