By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

CONGRESSWOMAN Madeleine Z. Bordallo and four other Democratic lawmakers have been cleared by the House ethics committee of any wrongdoing after Republican congressmen charged that they visited South Korea using an improper source of funding.
Last month, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wi, and Rep. Phil English, R-Pa, cut short a privately paid trip to Seoul, South Korea after they noticed that the Japan U.S. Friendship Commission event was also sponsored by the Korea Foundation, an organization that had been determined by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to be an improper source of funding.
The purpose of the Nov. 26 to Dec. 2, 2006 trip was to participate in the 36th U.S.-Japan Legislative Exchange Program and the U.S.-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Legislative Exchange Program.
Upon discovering the event was also sponsored by the Korea Foundation, Sensenbrenner stated he immediately informed “the rest of the U.S. delegation of this violation.”
In a letter to Rep. Doc Hastings of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, Sensenbrenner outlined the situation and stated he and English immediately withdrew their participation in the program and returned to the U.S. on the next available flight, stressing that the Democrats continued with the program.
But the House ethics committee has determined that the South Korea trip did not violate House travel rules.
In a letter to Sensenbrenner, the ethics committee chairman, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Oh, and ranking member, Doc Hastings, R-Wa, wrote that the trip did not violate House travel rules because the Korea Foundation funding was limited to program staff, and did not cover the expenses of the lawmakers.
Those expenses were paid for by the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, as Bordallo had always maintained.
Aside from Bordallo, the other Democrats in the delegation were Representatives Jim McDermott, D-Wa, Eni Faleomavaega, D-A.S., Mike Honda, D-Ca, and Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Tx.
Bordallo’s office has always denied any wrongdoing, saying that all the travel plans made by the congressional delegation were legitimate.
Bordallo also stressed the trip’s importance to her mission of reviewing the ongoing realignment of U.S. military forces because this is relevant to Guam as the island positions itself as the U.S. military “tip of the spear” in the Asia-Pacific region.
According to Bordallo, it was the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission that sponsored her travel, which was reviewed by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and ruled that the travel was in compliance with the regulations of the House of Representatives.