Feel like you could use a trip to the Ritz-Carlton beachfront resort in Aruba right about now? How about if the $10,000 trip for you and your family was paid for by a business partner?
Such a free vacation was a finding of a 2021 investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics into Rep. Alexander Mooney (R-W.V.), as compiled in a post this week by Daniel Schuman, executive director of the nonprofit American Governance Institute. That year, the OCE also filed a report alleging that Mooney steered campaign funds for his personal use, in what would be a violation of House rules and potentially federal law. The OCE reports went further in detailing Mooney’s alleged use of House staff and official resources for campaign work and personal errands, like babysitting and party planning.
As detailed by Schuman in his First Branch Forecast newsletter, the departing congressman Mooney and three other re-elected House members who had been under ethics investigation are heading into 2025 with a clean slate in these ethics cases, despite a combined six OCE reports between them over the past few years.
