Panel Rebukes Rep. Shuster for Ties to Lobbyist, Gifts

In an unusually stinging rebuke, the House Ethics Committee Thursday accused Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) of bringing “discredit to the House of Representatives” by maintaining close ties to a lobbyist, accepting improper gifts and potentially misusing campaign funds.

But as part of a deal in which Shuster admitted to five violations of ethic rules, the panel stopped short of calling for a full House vote on what it termed his “serious official misconduct.”

The powerful congressman remained defiant, going to the House floor to defend his actions and, in his formal response to the panel, accusing the Ethics Committee of “overkill for the charge of causing misguided public perceptions.” The ethics panel took Shuster to task for “blame-shifting about and trivializing of conduct to which you have admitted.”

Despite the pains the panel took to chastise the lawmaker, it issued one of the lightest available penalties.

The committee’s 147-page report on Shuster caps a four-year controversy over Shuster’s dealings with his former chief of staff, Ann Eppard, who left her job in November 1994 to open a transportation lobbying firm. It provides new details of how Eppard used her close relationship with Shuster to obtain access for her clients.

Although Eppard was barred by federal law from lobbying her former boss for a year after her departure, the panel found that she arranged for meetings between Shuster and her new clients. Eppard regularly dined with the congressman and his clients, and frequently dropped by his office to introduce clients before leaving so they could discuss legislation.

The panel also said Shuster:

* Violated House gift rules by taking a Christmas 1995 vacation trip to Puerto Rico financed by two of Eppard’s clients.

* Spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on meals in expensive restaurants and on chartered airplane flights that appeared to be for his personal use, a potential violation of campaign finance rules.

* Freely allowed aides to work on his campaign while remaining on his congressional payroll.

Shuster said many of his colleagues engage in the same kind of travel and dining around town for which he came under scrutiny. “I accept the findings to stop the hemorrhaging of legal fees and to put this behind us,” he said.