A group of watchdog organizations, including the Campaign Legal Center and Common Cause, sent this letter to Speaker Ryan (congratulations/condolences to the new speaker, BTW) last week asking for a moratorium on privately-financed foreign travel and the creation of a task force to review House rules and procedures related to such travel. Revelations relating to the Baku trip, the letter says, “highlight the failure of current travel rules to protect the integrity of the House.”
Questions the Task Force should address, the letter says, include (1)”are current procedures used by the House Committee on Ethics adequate to discover if shell entities are providing resources to a sponsoring organization?”; and (2) “what in House rules and procedures prevents foreign governments and businesses, which may be working against U.S. interests, from funneling money to an organization by paying for congressional trips?”