In 2006, Rick Santorum, less than two months before suffering one of the worst losses in Senate history, was named one of three “most corrupt” Senators by CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
“The officials named in this report have chosen to enrich themselves and their families and friends by abusing the power of their office, rather than work for the public good. Their collective corruption affects all Americans,” stated the executive director of CREW, Melanie Sloan.
“Sen. Santorum’s ethics issues stem from the manner in which he funded his children’s education and his misuse of legislative position in exchange for contributions to his political action committee and his re-election campaign,” CREW notes, on page 207 of their exhaustive report (PDF), which delves into deep detail across eleven extensively-footnoted pages.
In February of 2006, CREW had filed an ethics complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee against Senator Santorum, “alleging that Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) violated the Senate Gift Rule by accepting a mortgage from The Philadelphia Trust Company, a bank that serves affluent clients.”
Charging that “ethical trespasses have become the norm for Sen. Santorum,” CREW’s Melanie Sloan cited Santorum’s “contempt for the rules” as “particularly ironic given that Sen. Santorum has long attempted to position himself as the poster child for public morality.â€
The following month, CREW filed a complaint with the IRS against a group of Pennsylvania pastors for violating IRS rules demanding separation of church and state.
And later that same year, CREW filed yet another complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), this time against Santorum’s former staffers for setting up a lobbying office in the same building as Santorum’s offices.
Ironically, Santorum has served as a Senior Fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which claims to be “Washington, D.C.’s premier institute dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy.”
“From the Cold War to the war on terrorism, from disputes over the role of religion in public life to battles over the nature of the family, EPPC and its scholars have consistently sought to defend the great Western ethical imperatives — respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, individual freedom and responsibility, justice, the rule of law, and limited government.”
Apparently, hypocrisy has a new poster child.