John McCain, member of The Keating Five?

[SugarInTheRaw]

Have you heard of the Keating Five?

Originally Posted by NYTimes.com

The Keating Five and the Senate Six
Published: January 3, 1991

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...C0A9679582 60

The Senate Ethics Committee will call the Keating Five to the witness stand this week and start to wrap up hearings about the behavior of five Senators who jumped through hoops for one big political giver. Soon the spotlight will be not on Senators named Cranston, DeConcini, Riegle, McCain and Glenn but on the bipartisan Ethics Committee and the Senate itself.


To say that the Senate is on trial is not quite accurate. Congress already stands convicted of shameful standards and practices. Indeed, a prime defense argument is that the Senate is too deeply beholden to large contributors, too mired in the slimy business of raising campaign money, to sit in judgment of the Keating Five.


The Senate is indeed encumbered with institutional hypocrisy. But surely the committee of three Democrats and three Republicans can decide whether it is unethical for senators to grill Federal savings and loan regulators secretly on their inquiries into the business practices of Charles Keating, the financier who gave more than $1 million to the lawmakers and their causes.


Some lawyers for the five argue that due process requires a rule more specific than a ban on special favors and the appearance of impropriety. For the six committee members to accept that defense would be to abandon both ethics and Senate discipline. Although the degree of involvement with Mr. Keating differed in each case, all five Senators showed some awareness that an ethical line might be crossed.


Criminal law demands more specificity than the ethics standards. But the committee is not conducting a criminal trial. Besides, the public had a right to expect the five Senators themselves to be ethical guardians -- front-line fighters for the public interest with a keen eye for the kind of fraud now attributed to Mr. Keating.


The Keating Five must now put their claims of innocence to the test of sworn testimony and cross-examination. Then it will be up to the Senate Six -- the chairman, Howell Heflin, co-chairman Warren Rudman and Senators David Pryor, Terry Sanford, Jesse Helms and Trent Lott.


"Everybody does it" is no defense for the five. And it is no excuse for the six not to render ethical judgment.