Republicans Should Be Honest About Election Interference
A shameful effort to punish a federal judge for making plain factual statements will sow greater public distrust and undermine the rule of law.
What’s Stefanik’s game?
Photographer: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
In recent weeks, Congress has stripped a senator of his committee chairmanship pending a bribery investigation, expelled a House member for egregious frauds, and fired a staffer for making a sex tape in a committee room — all for the good, given the embarrassment each has brought on the institution. But there are deeper ethics challenges facing Congress, as the case of Representative Elise Stefanik shows.
Stefanik, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, has filed an ethics complaint against a federal judge, Beryl Howell. The judge’s alleged offense? At a dinner held by the Women’s White Collar Defense Association, Howell reportedly said the following: “We are having a very surprising and downright troubling moment in this country when the very importance of facts is dismissed, or ignored.”