Steve Buyer: “I think it is extremely important. I had some thoughts here that when you mentioned you have got this privileged…”

“I think it is extremely important. I had some thoughts here that when you mentioned you have got this privileged resolution, you are trying to press this forward, and I have heard other Members and rumblings of others saying, but there is a criminal investigation, let's let the Department of Justice take care of things and not start some ethics investigation. Well, there is a big difference between the criminal process, the criminal code, and ethics. I think that is extremely important. We have got the United States Code here on crimes and criminal procedure, title 18, section 1 through section 6002. It is the Federal Code. So we have the Department of Justice and all those prosecutors out there. I have prosecuted under the Federal code for 3 years. I understand criminal process and criminal procedure. This is the House Ethics Manual. It is different. It sets the code of conduct of Members. Now, there are two different sets here. Ethics manuals are supposed to be more stringent than the criminal standard and try to hold to the highest code possible. James Madison said, in the framing of this country, in the beginning of our ethics manual here, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." You see, they struggled with this issue of ethics in a government where you have people governing other people.”