Member of the US House of Representatives from 2013
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The working group on Azerbaijan in the US Congress has new members
Three new congressmen joined the working group on Azerbaijan in the US Congress, the Azerbaijani Embassy to Washington told Trend.
Congressmen Ted Poe (Texas) and Michelle Lujan Grisham (New Mexico) and Charlie Dent (Pennsylvania) have recently become members of the working group of the US Congress on Azerbaijan. Thus, the number of members of the working group on Azerbaijan reached up to 59 people.
In the accession of representatives of the Congress to the working group on Azerbaijan, a special role was played by the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ), which operates in the United States.
Source: news.day.az
The Hill: American congressmen return expensive gifts received from the authorities of Azerbaijan
After the control report of the US Congressional Ethics Office (OCE), American congressmen returned jade earrings, tea sets, silk scarves, carpets and other gifts received during their visit to Azerbaijan, secretly financed by the government. In the report of the Office, this visit is characterized as “wrong”. This is stated in the material published on the site of the publication “The Hill”.
The list of returned gifts, which the staff of the publication requested from the US General Services Administration (US GSA), gives a more detailed idea of the trip of US lawmakers to the conference in Baku in 2013. According to OCE, 9 current US congressmen and 32 legislative employees who attended the conference received gifts worth thousands of dollars. Some of the lawmakers also went to Turkey after the conference and received additional gifts already there.
According to the report, submitted on May 8, 2015, non-profit organizations based in Texas reported false information about the financing of the trip, but it was revealed that the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) sent $ 750. 000 through non-profit organizations, in order to hide the real source of funding for the visit of US lawmakers.
As noted in the material, Congressmen Yvette Clarke, Jim Bridenstine, Michelle Lujan Grisham and Ruben Hinojosa returned gifts in October 2015.
Under the accepted rules of ethics, when congressmen accept a gift, they must either pay the appropriate “market value” of the gift or return it to the physical or legal person from whom they received it. Legislators may also transfer gifts to the Secretary of the House of Commons, who will then transfer them to the General Services Office for disposal or sale.
Ethical rules for members of Congress say that, in some cases, they can accept gifts worth less than $ 50. Gifts from foreign countries and international organizations are acceptable if they are valued at less than $ 350.
The article also notes that the groom of Congressman Lujan Grisham accompanied her during her trips to Azerbaijan and Turkey. During the investigation, Grisham informed OCE that she had kept many of the gifts she received in her office. Earrings, tea set and a large carpet the congressman left in her home in Washington, some of the gifts were kept in her home in New Mexico.
The material says that congressmen Ted Poe, Leonard Lance and Sheila Jackson Lee also went to Baku, but they refused to talk to OCE during the investigation and it is not known which gifts they received.
Recall that in May 2015, the American newspaper The Washington Post published an article which stated that the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) secretly paid all the expenses of the American delegation participating in the conference “Azerbaijan-US: A Look into the Future” in May 2013. The delegation also included three former assistants to US President Barack Obama who took part in the conference as speakers.
As the newspaper writes, US lawmakers and their employees received hundreds of thousands of dollars for travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani carpets for $ 2500-10,000. As tourist accounts show, the cost of air tickets for legislators and their spouses cost the SOCAR $ 112,899.
mynewspro.ru