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Bonior: DiGenova, Toensing Should Be Fired for NBC Deal
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 1, 1998; Page D02
House Minority Whip David Bonior (D-Mich.) said yesterday that congressional investigators Victoria Toensing and husband Joe diGenova should be fired because they have signed on as part-time commentators for NBC News.
At a news conference with five other Democratic lawmakers, Bonior accused the lawyers of "an outrageous conflict of interest" while they are collecting $150,000 a year to lead a House Education and the Workforce Committee investigation of the Teamsters.
In a letter to Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who heads the Teamsters probe, diGenova and Toensing said they would abide by all House rules and challenged "the specious attempts by Democrats to divert attention away from the substantive issues involved in the investigation." They said NBC had hired them not as journalists but "as outside, independent analysts to discuss a wide variety of legal and political issues."
A Hoekstra spokesman said that "there's no conflict here" and called the Democratic complaint "just silly."
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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