{"id":2261,"date":"2007-09-19T16:56:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-19T22:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/09\/group-stands-by-allegation-even-as-pearce-disputes-it\/"},"modified":"2007-09-19T16:56:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-19T22:56:00","slug":"group-stands-by-allegation-even-as-pearce-disputes-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/09\/group-stands-by-allegation-even-as-pearce-disputes-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Group stands by allegation even as Pearce disputes it"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington<\/a> is standing by its assertion that U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce<\/a>, R-N.M., failed to report a financial transaction he was required to disclose even as Pearce\u2019s spokesman says the claim is bogus. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The allegation, made Tuesday when CREW released its list of the 22 most corrupt members of Congress<\/a>, is that Pearce failed to report on a public financial disclosure form the fact that he sold the assets of Lea Fishing Tools, Inc. to Key Energy Services for more than 540,000 shares of stock in 2003. The group says Pearce was required to report the sale and his failure to do so likely violated the Ethics in Government Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Though a Pearce campaign staffer told me this morning that a spokesman from Pearce\u2019s government office would call to discuss the situation with me, it has not yet happened. The last official word I received from Pearce\u2019s office is that it would make no comments to me until after Pearce\u2019s response was published in the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Though the Journal has not yet published an article about the situation, it did publish these comments from Pearce spokesman Brian Phillips on its blog<\/a> on Tuesday evening:<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have their facts correct. Rep. Pearce filed an accurate financial disclosure statement and all of Mr. Pearce\u2019s assets and transactions were correctly reported as law required,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cThere has been no violation of the Ethics in Government Act and Mr. Pearce stands by the documents on record.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Phillips added that Pearce \u201cserves the Second District with the utmost integrity. It is appalling that a group which claims to promote ethics and accountability would publish outright lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In the blog posting, the Journal published no explanation from Phillips to back up his assertion that the allegation is false. Phillip\u2019s statement also didn\u2019t directly address CREW\u2019s second allegation \u2013 that Pearce may have advocated for drilling on the Otero Mesa in exchange for campaign contributions from those with ties to oil companies.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In an interview, Melanie Sloan, CREW executive director, stood by the allegation that Pearce failed to disclose a transaction he was required to report.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cWe checked the reports pretty carefully and there is nothing in the reports indicating the sale,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026 If he has a more detailed explanation, I too would like to hear it, but him just saying that we\u2019re wrong is not sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

With my limited knowledge of this sort of thing, I looked through the financial reports, which you can read by clicking here<\/a>, and found no indication of the sale, which doesn\u2019t mean much. I\u2019ve been looking, without success, for others who might be able to shed light on the situation, and I\u2019ve made three attempts to discuss this with Pearce staffers.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

You can read the full report on CREW\u2019s allegations against Pearce by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

An investigation isn\u2019t likely, CREW says<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Sloan said she believes there should be an investigation but probably won\u2019t. House ethics investigations can only be triggered by members of the House, and there is a longstanding truce between Democrats and Republicans.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThat said, it is a violation of federal law to misreport things on these disclosure forms, and it can be a felony,\u201d Sloan said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

However, she added that it\u2019s rare for the Justice Department to investigate a member of Congress when the only allegation is not reporting a transaction. She said it is not uncommon for such a violation to be added as a charge when other charges are filed against a member of Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is standing by its assertion that U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., failed to report a financial transaction he was required to disclose even as Pearce\u2019s spokesman says the claim is bogus. The allegation, made Tuesday when CREW released its list of the 22 most corrupt members of Congress, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}