VITO QUITS - BUT HIS CRITICS WON'T

20 May 2008 // Despite besieged Rep. Vito Fossella’s retirement announcement today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington isn’t backing off their demand that the Staten Island Republican be investigated for using tax dollars to get frisky with a former Air Force liaison officer whose child he fathered.

The lefty watchdogs say they will not back off their request that the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct probe Fossella’s congressional junkets to Europe, where he is believed to have cavorted with official escort Lt. Col. Laura Shoaf, aka Laura Fay.

“CREW strongly urges the House Ethics Committee to investigate Rep. Fossella’s use of taxpayer dollars to fund his affair, regardless of his retirement announcement today. He is still a member of Congress, still subject to the same House rules,” CREW said in a statement to The Mouth.

In a twist, CREW has also called on the committee’s top GOP member to step aside from any examination of a suspect junket Fossella was on with his mistress. Records show that ranking Republican Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington State was on the 2003 congressional trip to Europe, where the married lovebirds’ romance was obvious to many of the travelers, sources have said.

“If Hastings was actually there and saw this and did nothing, he should clearly be recused from any consideration of the Fossella matter,” said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s director. “He should have at least confronted Vito Fossella and advised him he was about to have an ethics problem.”

The Daily News has reported that Fossella begged to go on the summer 2003 trip to Europe, where he left a day early to hang out with Shoaf, according to ex-GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s former top aide, Scott Palmer, and House records. Fossella was the only lawmaker on the trip to charge taxpayers $2,094 to fly home commercial instead of military.

Spokesmen for Fossella did not respond to requests for comment.

Last week, when asked if Hastings knew of the affair in 2003 or took any action, his spokesman said he wouldn’t discuss matters before the ethics committee. At that time, however, Fossella’s May 1 drunk driving bust was the only transgression known to be before the panel because House rules require a review of any lawmaker’s arrest. Asked again today, the Hastings spokesman said he wouldn’t discuss anything that could be looked at by the committee.