Van Flein: House Ethics Reform Necessary to Stop Left’s Alinsky Tactics

On Friday, Tom Van Flein, chief of staff to Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and one-time legal counsel to former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, discussed with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam the recent effort to overhaul the House ethics system.

Flein said the problem with the reform package presented, and then withdrawn, this week was that “it lacked transparency, so it was sort of dropped on the American public without any hearings, without any discussion, and that ultimately led to its failure.”

“It was a failure of process and the lack of transparency,” he emphasized. “It wasn’t because it did not have merit, however. And it was not, as the New York Times falsely stated in their Fake News, that it was ‘gutting’ the OCE [Office of Congressional Ethics] at all. It was modifying that agency to install some basic due process rights.”

“As it’s been going now, members of Congress have been subjected to secretive proceedings, abusive proceedings,” he explained. “There is a presumption of guilt. There’s a failure to disclose charges so people are not even aware of what the details are of the charges against them. They’ve been punished for simply hiring an attorney to represent them. And it’s being used for partisan purposes to get bad headlines and make people look bad. So the reforms were needed.”

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