A watchdog group “has filed a complaint against Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) with the Louisiana Office of Disciplinary Counsel accusing Vitter of violating the state’s rules of professional conduct for lawyers by soliciting prostitutes,” The Hill reports.
The complaint, “filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), comes in response to Vitter’s support for an investigation into ACORN, a liberal community-organizing group.”
In 2007, media reports revealed that Vitter was included in the so-called “D.C. Madam’s” list of client telephone numbers. The senator subsequently expressed deep regret for his actions. In addition, another Louisiana based-prostitution ring also claimed Vitter was a client in the mid-1990s.
CREW filed a complaint against Vitter with the Senate Ethics Committee, which dismissed the matter without action in September 2008.
Under Louisiana law, it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to “commit a criminal act especially one that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects.”
Response from Vitter’s office:
Vitter spokesman Joel DiGrado fired back at CREW, arguing that Sloan is a former Democratic staffer who is trying to shift the focus away from ACORN’s misdeeds with this complaint. In the mid-1990s Sloan has served as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee’s crime subcommittee, chaired at the time by then-Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“ACORN has been under investigation for a series of felony criminal offenses – most prominently voter fraud,” he said. “It’s no surprise that CREW, an organization run by a former Democratic Senate staffer, is trying do anything possible to shift the light off the fact that ACORN has stood hand in hand with the Democratic Party for a long time as it misused taxpayer dollars.”
