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WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for tighter ethics rules in federal agencies Wednesday after government officials approved the purchase of a $980,000 vacation home by a top Justice Department lawyer with an oil company lobbyist.

Pelosi's criticism followed an Associated Press report last week that department ethics officials did not object when Sue Ellen Wooldridge, then head of the environment division, was buying a South Carolina beach house with Donald R. Duncan, the top Washington lobbyist for ConocoPhillips.

"If in fact Ms. Wooldridge got such a pass from the ethics committee of the executive branch, then certainly the executive branch ethics process needs a look as well," Pelosi, D-Calif., said when asked about the house purchase at a San Francisco news conference.

Nine months after the purchase, Wooldridge approved an agreement that allowed ConocoPhillips an extension of pollution cleanup requirements at some of the company's refineries. The company says Duncan was not part of those negotiations.

Department officials and a lawyer for Wooldridge, who resigned from the job in January, said the department's ethics office approved the arrangement and told her she did not need to withdraw from dealings with ConocoPhillips.

The third buyer of the Kiawah Island, S.C., home was Wooldridge's companion, former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles. He is the highest-ranking Bush administration official facing possible criminal charges in the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility is looking into the home purchase and consent decrees, Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling said in a letter Friday to Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., chairman of the
House Judiciary Committee.

Conyers had asked for an explanation and documents related to the purchase after the AP report. e House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also is monitoring the case.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070221/ap_on_go_co/prosecutor_lobbyist

[Edited on February 22, 2007 at 1:02 AM. Reason : link]

2/22/2007 1:01:11 AM

i wonder if she's related to Ray Woolridge cause he was a shiesty dude too

2/22/2007 1:05:32 AM

Maybe Pelosi consulted her good friend John Murtha, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam FBI sting operation.

2/22/2007 1:20:12 AM

Pelosi needs to explain why she has placed William Jefferson on the Homeland Security panel if she is on this corruption kick.

2/22/2007 9:20:16 AM

^ Yeah, maybe it was his $90,000 in "frozen assets."

2/22/2007 10:16:14 AM

^^^signs you didnt read the article:

Quote :

"#2 you make a snide comment about someone named in the article who had nothing to do with the story"

2/22/2007 1:16:20 PM

Pelosi should clean her own closet out before she starts tossing stones at anyone

2/22/2007 9:02:05 PM

If we wait for an honest politician before we let one tackle corrpuption it'll never get done. Anyways jesus was clearly speaking about literal stones when he coined that cliche.

2/22/2007 11:44:42 PM