Ehh, What's Up Doc?

NYT, via The Stakeholder...

Newly disclosed lobbying records and other documents show that the chairman of the House ethics committee, Doc Hastings, a Washington State Republican, has had a close relationship for years with lobbyists at the Seattle-based law firm that is at the center of ethics accusations involving Tom DeLay, the House majority leader.

Yep, that's Preston Gates & Ellis, Jack Abramoff's old stomping grounds, which was the first Upper Left entanglement in this ongoing saga of Republican corruption. Of course...

The records do not show any direct contact between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Abramoff; the contacts were always with others in Mr. Abramoff's lobbying operation.

Ah, Mr. Abramoff's lobbying operation. That's much better now, isn't it.

Of course, there's the question of Doc's involvement in one of the nastier byways of Tom Delay's highway of corruption, the 'Made In America' sweatshops of Saipan...

...Preston Gates pressed Mr. Hastings and his staff several years ago for help on behalf of Mr. Abramoff's most important lobbying client at the time, the government of the Northern Mariana Islands, a small American commonwealth in the Pacific, in blocking the imposition of the federal minimum wage on the islands' clothing factories; human rights groups have long described the factories as sweatshops.

And they weren't just talking to him. In the end, it all comes down to following the money...

Federal Election Commission records show that the firm and its partners have been consistent campaign contributors to Mr. Hastings, donating more than $14,000 since he entered Congress a decade ago, $1,000 of that from Mr. Abramoff.

Ethics Chair, huh? What's up with that, Doc?