The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday announced 12 members of the task force that will investigate whether U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous of the Eastern District of Louisiana should be impeached.
Chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and ranking Republican Lamar Smith, R-Texas, named seven Democrats and five Republicans to the task force with Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to chair the group.
The leading Republican member of the committee will by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.
Porteous, appointed to the federal bench in Louisiana by President Bill Clinton in 1994, has been suspended for two years by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and stripped of court staff.
He allegedly "solicited and received" cash from lawyers with cases pending before him while a state judge and later on the federal bench, lied on financial disclosure statements and committed perjury by filing false statements in his personal bankruptcy.
On June 23 the Judicial Conference of the United States, the policymaking body of the federal courts, recommended that Congress consider an impeachment action against Porteous. The 5th Circuit Judicial Council made the initial recommendation to consider impeachment after its own internal investigation. That was passed on to the Judicial Conference, which agreed.
On Sept. 11, the 5th Circuit released hundreds of pages of documents detailing the allegations against Porteous and the attorneys allegedly involved.
It remains up to the House to determine whether to initiate an impeachment.
Joining Schiff and Goodlatte on the task force are Democrats Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas; Bill Delahunt D-Mass.; Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.; Hank Johnson, D-Ga.; and Artur Davis, D-Ala. On the Republican said are Dan Lungren, R-Calif.; Ric Keller, R-Fla.; Randy Forbes, R-Va.; and Louie Gohmert, R-Texas.
