Thirty-five years ago, a Congressional ethics investigation was launched that would eventually bring down a powerful Speaker of the House. As the scandal played out, it was learned the Washington Post had been sitting on an explosive story for years that the Speaker had given refuge to a violent predator.
World War II veteran Jim Wright was elected to Congress from the Fort Worth, Texas, area in 1954. He rose in prominence over the years until 1976 when he narrowly won the post of House majority leader, the second-ranking position in the Democratic majority-led House of Representatives. Wright became Speaker of the House after then-Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill retired following the 1986 election.
In his second year as House Speaker, Wright came under scrutiny for several possible ethics violations. Allegations involved Wright’s book, Reflections of a Public Man, and how it was published and sold. The watchdog organization Common Cause urged the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, often referred to as the Ethics Committee, to open an investigation.
The Ethics Committee did just that on June 9, 1988. There were six alleged violations of House rules the Ethics Committee was to investigate. Four of these dealt with business matters in which Wright’s actions were deemed possibly improper, or in which he possibly had a business interest. The remaining two of the violations were regarding his book. Did Wright improperly use government resources in order to complete his book, and did he use campaign funds to pay for the book’s publishing?
Democrats, who held a 258 to 177 seat majority in the House, were adamant that the charges were false and were upset Wright was being investigated. The public was concerned the investigation would be a whitewash.
In order to gain credibility in the matter and to be viewed as “fair and objective,” the Ethics Committee hired an outside special counsel to conduct the investigation. The committee was widely viewed as failing the “fair and objective” benchmark when it hired Chicago attorney Richard Phelan, who was also a Democratic political operative. Phelan was a major fundraiser for Senator Paul Simon when the Illinois politician ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1988, and Phelan was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.[1]
Phelan quickly began his investigation with vigor and was uncovering facts Wright did not want made public, nor included in the Ethics Committee report. In an attempt to derail Phelan’s investigation, Wright leaked a story to the New York Times that the special counsel had broadened his investigation beyond the original mandate.[2] The Times came through for Wright and published a story that included all of the clever clichés, including “witch hunt,” “abuse of power,” “wandering,” and “politicized,” that characterized Phelan as out of control and was intended to derail the investigation. The New York Times story had no public impact.
After interviewing more than seventy witnesses and reviewing thousands of pages of documents, Phelan delivered his completed investigation to the committee on February 21, 1989.
Regarding the costs associated with Wright’s Reflections of a Public Man, the special counsel “concluded that there was no evidence on which to find that any campaign funds were used to produce and publish the book.”[3] The special counsel also concluded there was no violation of using government resources to prepare the book. The counsel found that members of Wright’s staff worked on the book “during the ‘normal’ 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. work day.”[4] Surprisingly, Phelan reasoned that because Wright’s staff commingled his official business and his personal book business during more than forty hours a week, he concluded there was no obvious violation of using government employees and resources for personal gain.
It was during his investigation that the special counsel discovered there was a related book matter that did violate ethics rules. It dealt with the royalties Wright was receiving from book sales.
First, there was the relationship between Wright and the publisher, Madison Publishing of Fort Worth, Texas. Madison did not meet the expectation of what constituted an “established publisher.”[5] For example, there was not a true royalty arrangement between Madison and Wright, as was typically found between a publisher and author. The counsel “concluded that a joint venture existed and not one of a true royalty arrangement.”[6] Wright would receive 55 percent of the sale price for each book. Additionally, Madison Publishing did not market, distribute, or procure copyright protection of the book, as is typically done by an established publisher. In other words, Wright’s book was self-published.
Second, it was apparent Wright was facilitating bulk purchases of his book at various speaking engagements to get around limits on honoraria. Federal law limited federal officials to $2,000 of honoraria for “any appearance, speech, or article” on an annual basis.[7] There was also a House rule that limited outside income to no more than 30 percent annually of a member’s congressional salary. Book royalties were exempted, assuming the royalties resulted from book sales from an established publisher “under usual contract terms.”[8]
The special counsel identified seventy-six bulk purchasers of Wright’s book. Time constraints limited him to subpoenaing only nineteen of them. The special counsel found that eleven of the nineteen bulk book purchasers bought the books “in connection with speeches given by Representative Wright.”[9]
There were other suspect bulk purchases. One bulk purchaser was a wealthy political supporter who bought one thousand copies.[10] Another large bulk purchase was made by the Teamsters’ Union. Phelan issued the Teamsters a subpoena. The union refused to comply with the subpoena and Phelan backed down.[11]
The twelve-member Ethics Committee, evenly divided with six Democrats and six Republicans, unanimously found that Wright violated House rules at least sixty-nine times, according to its Statement of Alleged Violation.[12] This included business arrangement violations, as well as the bulk book purchase violations. The thirty-one-page document is the congressional equivalent of an indictment.
Eight of the charged violations included instances in which an organization, in lieu of paying Wright a typical $2,000 speaker’s fee, would instead buy $2,000 worth of his book. In at least two cases, the organization did not receive all or even any of the books. In one case, Wright was paid $5,000 by a supporter in return for revised copies of the book. The book was never revised.[13]
The ethics charges against Wright were only the latest in a string of ethics scandals that plagued the House of Representatives. When it became obvious Wright could not weather the scandal, he submitted his resignation on May 31, 1989, to take effect upon the election of a new Speaker. Wright vacated his congressional seat on June 30.
On May 4, after it had become apparent Wright was going to resign, the Washington Post published a story that it had been sitting on for two-and-a-half years.[14]
In 1973, nineteen-year-old John Mack attacked a girl without provocation. He crushed her skull with a hammer, stabbed her multiple times, slashed her throat, and left her for dead in an alley. Miraculously, she survived. She identified Mack as her attacker. He was arrested, charged, tried, and convicted. Mack was sentenced to fifteen years in the Virginia State Penitentiary. He never spent one day there. Instead, Mack served just two years in the cushier Fairfax County jail before being released to a job waiting for him on the staff of Jim Wright. John Mack was the brother of Wright’s son-in-law.
Mark Hyman is an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, Parler, Post, and Mastodon.world at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.
His books Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation and Pardongate: How Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Brothers Profited from Pardons are on sale now (here and here).
[1] John M. Barry, The Ambition and the Power, (New York: Viking Press, 1989), 679.
[2] Ibid, 665.
[3] Statement of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, In the Matter of Representative James C. Wright, Jr., US House of Representatives, April 13, 1989, 19.
[4] Ibid, 43.
[5] Ibid, 32.
[6] Ibid, 20.
[7] 2 USC. §441i.
[8] Statement of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, In the Matter of Representative James C. Wright, Jr., US House of Representatives, April 13, 1989, p. 30.
[9] Ibid, 21.
[10] Barry, The Ambition and the Power, 713.
[11] Ibid, 665.
[12] Statement of Alleged Violation, In the Matter of Representative James C. Wright, Jr., US House of Representatives, April 13, 1989.
[13] Ibid, 5-11.
[14] Barry, The Ambition and the Power, 734.