Rep. Marie Newman swears she didn’t offer a job to her political rival in order to keep him from running against her, as a complaint made by a right-wing group alleges. But several local political sources and former allies have raised questions about how honest the Democratic freshman from Illinois has been with House investigators, who are looking into the allegation. Their recollections contradict key parts of Newman’s defense against the charges that she bought off a would-be contender in the 2020 Democratic primary with a quid-pro-quo offer to join her staff.
The House Ethics Committee is investigating the accusation, because such an arrangement would violate both federal law and House rules. The basis of the inquiry is a lawsuit filed against Newman by Iymen Chehade, a Palestinian-American history professor, who had signed a contract with Newman that promised she would hire…
