Why Pick On Traficant?
Media Monitor | By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid | August 8, 2002
. . . only disgraced Democrat Representative Gary Condit voted for Traficant.
Democratic Representative James Traficant of Ohio was expelled from the House for nine violations of the Code of Conduct arising from his felony convictions. The vote was 420-1, and only disgraced Democrat Representative Gary Condit voted for Traficant. That got a chuckle from the talking heads. But Doug Thompson on the Capitol Hill Blue Web site wondered why some other members of the House have not been expelled. One was Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, "the most openly-gay member of Congress, whose male prostitute boyfriend ran a whorehouse out of the Congressman's Capitol Hill townhouse."
Contending he was being singled out for special treatment, Traficant himself questioned why Representatives Daniel Crane and Gerry Studds had not been expelled back in 1983 for sexual misconduct with underage congressional pages. The Ethics Committee had recommended a reprimand but members on the floor offered a successful amendment to upgrade the discipline to censure. Still, they were not expelled.
Frank used the influence of his office on behalf of a male prostitute. Frank, who tried to fix his parking tickets, had hired and paid him $85 after seeing an ad for a "hot bottom" in the Washington Blade. The Ethics Committee had recommended a reprimand of Frank. The full House voted 390-38 against expulsion. It voted 287-141 against censure. Yet Frank was guilty of several felonies. "The truth of the matter," said Congressman William Dannemeyer, who sponsored the resolution to expel Frank, "is that Mr. Frank has admitted that he committed a felony on numerous occasions in the District of Columbia…" These included the crime of sodomy, which was then a felony. And prostitution was another violation of the law. "Unfortunately," Dannemeyer went on to say, "the ethics committee did not list in its recommendations to the House anything about the commission of the felonies that I have described and the misdemeanors. I think that is a significant omission." At the time, 1990, the House was run by liberals.
Bob Dornan was one of only four members to speak in favor of the expulsion. He turned to Frank and said "I will vote for expelling you because you did not have the honor or decency to resign." Dornan said Congress had already lowered its standards when it failed to expel Crane and Studds for their sex scandals.
Representative Newt Gingrich voted against Dannemeyer's resolution to expel Frank. Gingrich went on to sign a fundraising letter exploiting Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, saying, "I believe the leaders of our country owe it to America's children to set a strong moral example that says character still counts!" That was before the story of his own adultery broke.
Frank recently sponsored a bill that would allow non-citizens convicted of child pornography, as well as other convicted felon immigrants, to be allowed to return to the US. This would include drug traffickers and violent felons, who only served two years in jail before being deported. He was entertained by CIA director George Tenet on Gay Pride Day at the agency. Frank had friends in high places. Traficant didn't.
Reed Irvine is the former Chairman of Accuracy In Media and Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report.
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