The chairman of the House ethics committee apparently did not properly file a required report about a $3,170 trip to Canada last year. His staff said it must have been lost in the mail.

Perhaps the report, due nine months ago, will turn up. But this is a potentially embarrassing juncture for the chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), to suffer a paperwork blunder.

[...]

The errant report came to light when PoliticalMoneyLine, a Web site specializing in money and politics, compared the trips summarized on lawmakers' annual financial disclosures -- released earlier this month -- with those on the more detailed disclosure forms that are supposed to be filed within 30 days of a trip.

Hastings listed a trip from July 30 to Aug. 1, 2004, to Stuart Island, B.C., that was paid for by Washington Group International, an Idaho-based engineering and construction company that provides nuclear-cleanup services.

PoliticalMoneyLine did not find a matching travel report that would have spelled out the details of the trip.

Posted by: Jonathan Singer / 11:17 AM | Basie! Home