House ethics panel clears Hughes

All charges against Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, were dismissed Friday by the House Ethics Committee, ending a closed-door investigation into a complaint filed by Democratic lawmakers that accused him of bribery, extortion and abuse of office.

"It's a beautiful day, outside here as well as what happened inside the Capitol today," an emotional Hughes told reporters, calling the complaint "an attack on the eve of an election. It's the dirtiest kind of campaign, and I'm just grateful the committee saw this for what it was."

Hughes' chief accuser, House Minority Caucus Manager Phil Riesen, D-Salt Lake, had little to say Friday night. "I really don't want to comment except to say what happened today with the ethics committee is absurd. Period."

Riesen said he wasn't worried about any potential consequences. "I don't care. I did what I thought was right and I still consider it was right. If retribution is what they want to do, bring it on," he said. "Whatever happens, happens."

Wednesday, the committee begins hearing another ethics complaint, this one filed by Hughes against Riesen for allegedly leaking the allegations against Hughes to the news media.

The committee meets behind closed doors, but made an exception Friday to announce its findings. Even so, members continued to decline to answer questions from the media, citing the pending case against Riesen.

Although the bipartisan committee determined none of the six charges against Hughes were proved by "clear and convincing" evidence, they also chose to send a letter critical of Hughes' behavior to the House.

The letter, signed by the four Republicans and four Democrats on the committee stated, "We do find that some of Representative Hughes' conduct as presented to us during this inquiry was unbecoming" a House member and requested that Hughes "take steps to change his behavior and to make appropriate apologies to those who may have been affected."

The letter also stated that the committee came to the conclusion that the current code of official conduct "is not specific enough to provide adequate guidelines to look to when examining legislative behavior and not direct enough to give fair notice of whether certain behavior is ethical or not."

The committee went on in the letter to "strongly recommend" that the Legislature review and revise its rules of conduct and that the House "begin ongoing ethics training for all members as quickly as possible."

Hughes did not address the letter in his statement and did not take questions from the media before leaving the Capitol with his wife, Krista, to attend their young daughter's soccer game.