The Committee found that you should have known that you were providing incorrect, inconsistent, misleading or incomplete information to the public, the Senate and those  conducting legitimate inquiries into your appointment to the Sentate. [...]

The Committee has found that your actions and statements reflected unfavorably on the Senate and issues this Public Letter of Qualified Admonition.

Translation: We know you lied under oath; here’s your slap on the wrist.

Is it any wonder that watchdog groups don’t trust the system of Congress policing itself?

Twenty-two months later, the ethics panel returned its verdict: nothing wrong with that. “After considering all the information before it, the Committee considers the matter to be resolved and intends no further action,” the panel wrote.

CREW executive director Melanie Sloan issued a statement of her own expressing mock disbelief. “We are shocked, shocked to see Sen. Landrieu absolved of wrongdoing,” Sloan said.

After nearly two years, the only real shock was that the ethics panel had bothered to respond at all.

But that hasn’t ended the matter, according to The Journal:

The discovery that Countrywide Financial Corp. recorded phone conversations with borrowers in a controversial mortgage program that included public officials — and that those recordings have been destroyed — has prompted new congressional calls for more information about the program.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is trying to subpoena the remaining records of Countrywide’s VIP loan program.

If Countywide destroyed some records crucial to this case, it’s worth probing further. But it also raises the question — where are all the other investigations into the scandals of the subprime boom?

As Gillian Tett of the Financial Times pointed out recently, more than 1,000 savings and loan executives went to jail following that scandal in the late 1980s and 1990s. So far, convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff is the only high-profile fraudster behind bars, but that seems to be about it.

One reason why the Madoff drama has grabbed so much attention and already sparked a slew of books this month, is precisely because there are precious few other financiers behind bars, or facing momentous fines. Compared to the S&L days, the level of retribution so far seems almost non existent.

Here’s hoping the Republican lawmakers so zealous about their pursuit of the Countrywide VIP scandal apply that same enthusiasm to the rest of the financial mess. It’s something that, so far, just hasn’t happened.

Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who head the Senate Ethics Committee, introduced legislation Thursday to force lawmakers to disclose the “full and complete” details of their mortgage arrangements — including dates, rates, the range of the amount and the creditor’s name and location.

The bill arrived one day before the Ethics Committee cleared Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) of ethics violations surrounding special rates they received on loans taken out through Countrywide Financial Corp.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported yesterday that four of Minnesota’s top attorneys “have been retained by U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman; his wife, Laurie; Jim Hays, her insurance company employer; and Nasser Kazeminy, a multi-millionaire friend of the Colemans who is accused in the lawsuits of sending them money in 2007 through Hays’ company. Coleman’s Senate ethics form reports no such payment.”

The suits, which have caught the eyes of the FBI, are being brought by investors and a former head of Kazeminy’s Texas-based marine-services company. Though neither of the Coleman duo is named as a defendant in the lawsuits, they do “raise a question over whether Coleman received income that was not reported in his Senate ethics forms,” the Tribune reports. “Regardless of what the FBI does or doesn’t find in its investigation, the issue of unreported income is something the Senate Ethics Committee could choose to scrutinize. That panel has a policy of not confirming or denying its preliminary investigations.”

Sen. Coleman has denied any wrongdoing.

Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.

The problem?

According to a non-partisan government watchdog, McCain never reported the winnings from this and other gambling excursions in his annual financial disclosure statements, as required by federal law and Senate rules.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint today with the Senate Ethics Committee, calling for an investigation into whether McCain, reportedly an avid gambler, broke the law. You can view the complaint here (PDF). From a CREW press release:

The Senate Ethics Manual states that winnings, such as those derived from a lottery or a game show, are gifts that must be reported as income. Knowingly filing a false report is a crime punishable by up to five years in jail.

Nevertheless, Sen. McCain reported no income derived from gambling on the personal financial disclosure reports he filed with the Senate between 2000 and 2007.

In contrast, other members of Congress, including Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) all reported winnings on their financial disclosure reports.

CREW’s executive director Melanie Sloan stated, “Given Sen. McCain’s long history of gambling, the fact that he never included gambling income on his financial disclosure forms suggests he is either the unluckiest gambler ever or, more likely, he failed to report the income.”

Presumably, a failure to report his winnings to the IRS would also be problematic, as all gambling income is fully taxable.

Obviously, I don’t know if McCain won any money, but a quick look at Line 21 on his 2006 and 2007 tax returns — available on his campaign Website — reveals that he did not report any “other income” in either year.

I’d suggest the IRS look into the matter, but I’m afraid I’d be risking a Nixonian “random audit” should McCain win in November.

On a McCain campaign-organized conference call with reporters, high-powered Washington lawyer and political fixer John Dowd defended McCain against criticism from the Obama campaign in response to McCain’s efforts to tie Sen. Barack Obama to former Weatherman William Ayers.

Dowd represented McCain during the Senate Ethics Committee investigations into the “Keating Five” scandal, in which McCain and four other senators were accused of corruption. McCain was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing, but was admonished by the committee for exercising “poor judgment.” Dowd described the scandal as “a smear job” against McCain.

Those who followed the hearings on former Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzalez’s politicization of the Justice Department last year may remember Dowd as Monica Goodling’s attorney.

In the conference call, Dowd attempted to spin an apparent negative — McCain’s involvement in the scandal — into a positive, in that McCain fully cooperated with the investigation.

“From the time the initial allegations were made by the New York Times and Archibald Cox, John was completely open, both with the public and with the Senate — and in particular with the Senate Ethics Committee. He fully cooperated. He and his wife, Cindy, produced all documents requested by Bob Bennett, who was the special counsel. He gave interviews, he gave sworn testimony by way of deposition, and he testified at the hearing conducted by the Senate Ethics Committee. He was the only Republican in that hearing, and so it had some political overtones, given that a number of Democrats were in deep trouble.”

When asked to describe the relationship between Keating and McCain, Dowd was sparing:

“They were friends. They had known each other socially, I believe, as early as ‘80 or ‘81. So, they were social friends, and then Keating raised this business about [Keating's American Continental Corporation, the parent company of Lincoln Savings and Loan] with John.”

After a long pause, Dowd added:

“And Keating was a contributor to both [McCain's] House and Senate races, as documented by the Senate report.”

However, McCain’s ties to Keating were much deeper than Dowd let on.

Keating donated $112,000 to McCain’s campaigns, and McCain accepted at least nine undisclosed flights on Keating’s private jet, including several trips to Keating’s residence in the Bahamas.

McCain eventually reimbursed Keating for the flights– after the scandal broke, which Dowd pointed to as a demonstration of McCain’s integrity:

“[McCain] believed, I think, in good faith that he had reimbursed Keating for the plane flights. In 1989, when he learned that he had not, he not only reimbursed him, but he reported it to both the House and Senate committees. So no one knew about it, except John. That’s an act of integrity and honesty…I think John handled it appropriately, when he discovered that he had not fully reimbursed for the flights and other costs. He did it voluntarily, and he reported it himself – and that’s exactly what people expect members of the Senate and House to do.”

Dowd said he doubted “if you’d find any member of the House or Senate today that would do the same thing.”

Of course, Dowd neglected to address the underlying issue — that McCain accepted the trips at all, and the fact is that McCain did not pay for them until after he was under investigation. Dowd concluded by praising McCain for severing ties to Keating.

“The evidence bore out that [McCain] was honest about what he had done, and he tried to be very careful in the handling of it. When he discovered that Keating was pushing too hard, he threw Keating out of his office and ended all relations with him.”

While McCain’s connection to Keating may have no more relevance to the current race than does Obama’s connection to Ayers, the fact that it is now a campaign issue illustrates that McCain has invited closer scrutiny to his long history in Washington — and he is not without his own questionable friends.