STAY OUTTA VITO PROBE, TOP GOP ETHICS GUY TOLD

21 May 2008 // Liberal watchdogs yesterday asked House ethics probers to look into Rep. Vito Fossella getting frisky on the taxpayers' nickel.

But in a twist, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) also asked the ethics panel's top GOP member to step aside from any examination of a suspect junket the Staten Island Republican took with his mistress, retired Air Force Col. Laura Fay.

Records show that Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) - the ranking GOPer on the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct - was on a 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."

Spokesmen for Hastings and Fossella did not respond to requests for comment.

The Daily News has reported that Fossella begged to go on the summer 2003 trip to Europe, where he cavorted with Fay and left a day early, according to GOP officials and House records. He was the only lawmaker to charge taxpayers $2,094 to fly on a commercial airline instead a military-provided plane.

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.