CA-42: Miller Faces The Music

I found it unusual to have this kind of session in the Republican caucus, where one member must defend his actions to the group. Are they planning on having one of these a day to cover everybody? It's more evidence that the GOP considers Rep. Gary Miller's situation a real problem:

Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.) passionately pleaded his innocence before GOP colleagues at a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday, nearly a week after several media outlets reported that the FBI is looking into his land deals.

Miller told colleagues that the press and Democrats had launched a smear campaign against him, singling out The Hill and the Los Angeles Times as perpetrators, as well as a former Democratic mayor of the Southern California city of Monrovia, Lara Larramendi Blakely, who now works for Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), according to GOP sources.

This is standard Republican scandal deflection, blaming the press and the Democrats for one's own sins. That Miller had to employ this tactic to his fellow colleagues is significant. While they won't say it publicly, clearly the Republican leadership understands that corruption scandals had a major impact on costing them their majority. You're not going to see the leadership line up behind corrupt members. And that corruption includes practically the entire California delegation:

Also of reported concern to Republicans is a federal investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif. The probe, an offshoot of the Randy "Duke" Cunningham scandal, was first reported last July. "The Los Angeles Times" revealed that prosecutors suspect Lewis of steering millions in taxpayer money to clients of favored lobbyists.

The congressman's office did not return a call for comment, but he has previously denied the charges.

An investigation into another serving House Republican is showing signs of renewed activity. New documents have been handed over to a grand jury in the case of Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., who's facing scrutiny for misusing his influence to pump up the value of land he owned and later sold, according to California's Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

Calvert's office declined to comment today; in the past he has denied wrongdoing in the affair.

I wasn't aware that Calvert's under grand jury investigation as well.

Meanwhile, Miller was getting only tepid support from Minority Leader John Boehner at this meeting, and with the evidence stacking up against him, he's in danger of graduating to the first step of getting booted out of Congress: losing his committee assignments:

Boehner, however, has not indicated whether he will keep Miller in the top GOP spot on the Finance Committee’s Oversight and Investigations panel.

“I really don’t think Boehner was suggesting that the books have been closed on any of the cases members are concerned about,” the source close to Boehner continued. “If anything, he was underscoring the leadership’s commitment to staying on top of these matters.”

That's not exactly a vote of confidence.

With Democratic leaders mulling over possible challenges, the GOP brass doing a bit of distancing, and with Miller himself in full blame-game mode, this is something to which everybody should be attuned.