Conservative watchdog Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) named Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz No. 2 on its list of ethically most challenged in 2017, right behind Congress' secret sexual harassers.
Rep. Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, lands on the No. 2 spot for her role in continuing to employ and compensate former House IT aide Imran Awan even after he was under criminal investigation and barred from doing any work on the House computer system.
Wasserman Schultz fired Awan only after he was arrested trying to flee the country in July.
Wasserman Schultz's dubious distinction lands her right behind the secret list of congressmen who doled out $17 million of taxpayer funds to settle more than 200 cases of sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination and retaliation from the past 20 years.
"While each violation is different, at the heart of each case is a public official brazenly disregarding our nation’s laws and placing their own political interests above the law and the public good,” wrote Kendra Arnold, executive director of FACT.
Rounding out the year's top 5 FACT findings:
- No. 3: Rep. John Lewis: Allowed his chief of staff to also be employed as campaign treasurer.
- No. 4: Rep. Alcee Hastings: Used taxpayer funds to compensate his longtime girlfriend.
- No. 5: DNC chief Tom Perez: Illegally transferred campaign funds to pay off debts of his former opponents.
Wasserman Schultz, the disgraced former chair of the Democratic National Committee, was also outed this fall in a new book from her successor, Donna Brazile, for turning over veritable operational control of the broke DNC to Hillary Clinton in the summer of 2016.
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