Stepping Aside

It seems some people are a bit nervous about being associated with one of their own:

A half-dozen members of the House Ethics Committee have recused themselves from the troubled investigation of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and been replaced by a new team, a sign that the stalled probe is set to restart.
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Last year, the committee hired veteran defense lawyer Billy Martin Jr. to conduct an outside review of the probe. In a letter Friday to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), six committee members said Martin had found no evidence of any “actual bias or partiality” by the lawmakers, but they were voluntarily recusing themselves from the case anyway to “eliminate the possibility of questions being raised” and “move this matter forward.”

Waters’s office had not provided comment on the recusal as of this posting.

The lawmakers recusing themselves are Reps. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.), Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Michael Conaway (R-Texas), Charles Dent (R-Pa.) and Gregg Harper (R-Miss.). Bonner and Sanchez are the chairman and ranking Democrat on the panel, respectively.

The rats have left the ship; new rats wanted...