Here Are The Six Most Corrupt Congressmen Of 2018, According To A Watchdog Group

A conservative-leaning watchdog group says House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are the biggest congressional scofflaws of 2018, for their anemic handling of the settlement slush fund that used an unlimited pot of taxpayer money to pay off congressional staff in exchange for signing legal papers barring them from taking public their claims of sexual harassment and other mistreatment by their congressional employers.

Congress members briefly claimed to be shocked at the victim-gagging slush fund when the media reported on it, but in reality, members of both parties in the House’s leadership oversaw it for years. The Committee on House Administration voted on each settlement and put out statistics that severely understated the scope of the problem. Former Democratic Michigan Rep. John Conyers, whose settlement sparked the initial furor, resigned, and the media moved on from the story.

A bill by then-Rep. Ron Desantis that would have named the congressmen who benefited from these payoffs in past years went nowhere, while the bill agreed to by the administration committee and the Senate is more anemic.

“Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now has an opportunity to act further and we will be encouraging her to finally bring an end to this systematic cover-up. Every day that goes by without releasing the names of Members who have received taxpayer money to settle harassment and discrimination claims is another day of cover-up and another day more innocent people are put at risk of becoming victims,” said Kendra Arnold, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT).

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