Wright Defends Book Royalties in Two-Hour Ethics Testimony

House Speaker Jim Wright testified for more than two hours at a closed session of the House Ethics Committee today as the panel continued investigating whether Wright improperly used his position for financial gain.

“I’m very, very happy at this,” Wright said as he emerged from the session. “I’ve looked forward to this for more than three months.”

The ethics committee has been interviewing witnesses in connection with complaints filed against Wright by his chief accuser, Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). Today’s session was Wright’s first appearance before the panel.

Wright said he answered questions from the panel on all six counts that are in the formal resolution of inquiry. “I sat there and just discussed it all with them,” he said.

Wright brought with him several dozen books, which he called “part of the documentation.” One group of books contained volumes published under 50% royalty agreements by local small-scale publishers. An additional 50 books on the cart wheeled into the hearing room were by members of Congress and contained acknowledgements of help from tax-paid staff members.

One allegation against Wright is that he made unduly high royalties on his book, “Reflections of a Public Man,” which was prepared in part by workers on his congressional office payroll.

The Speaker said he took the books to show the ethics committee that what he had done was “a very . . . customary thing.”