Congressman Dan Burton accepts bribes from US Public Relations firm on behalf of murderous regime

Dan Burton takes detour around ethics
3 August, 2012 – IndyStar

Rep. Dan Burton hit a low point in a congressional career riddled with embarrassing errors in judgment when he cast the only negative vote on sweeping ethics legislation passed by the U.S. House in 2007.

The retiring veteran’s high-flying ways as a junketeer don’t seem to have been much affected by the law he so brazenly opposed.

Abetted by a House Ethics Committee that seems unable to wield the club it’s been given, Burton in April took a $20,966 trip to Bahrain with his wife on the tab of an organization created by a lobbying group.

Burton, in turn, took to the House floor to plug Bahrain’s government, which has been on a public-relations offensive amid widespread criticism of its harsh treatment of pro-democracy demonstrators.

Hair-splitting cleared Burton for takeoff. The rules adopted in 2007 in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal forbid lawmakers from accepting travel funds from anyone who employs a lobbyist. The Bahrain American Council, which paid for the trip, employs no lobbyists. But it was formed by, and shares offices with, Policy Impact Communications, a lobbying outfit with which Burton has had dealings before.

To Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen, the ethics committee has “turned the rules on their head” by allowing this end run. To be sure, the committee has built a reputation for extending such leniency to both parties.

Neither the committee nor Burton’s office would respond to ProPublica, the news agency that prepared the story, published Friday in The Star, about the 5th District congressman.

Burton, as third-ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, would be a decent catch for the embattled Bahraini regime — but for the fact he’s in his last year in office after losing the support of his own party in large part because of his self-serving, polarizing behavior.

If he nevertheless felt his host’s cause and his own influence were so weighty, Burton could have asked taxpayers to pay for his travel expenses and avoided one more plunge into the pool of perks offered by foreign interests that obviously want something in return. At least that would have capped his 30 years with a show of independence and sound judgment. Instead, he went for consistency. …source