Congressional staff members with detailed knowledge of the probe said ethics investigators are examining Wilson's unusually high number of foreign trips — at least 30 in the past eight years — and his use of per diem expense money while traveling abroad.
Wilson, a relatively unknown lawmaker until he shouted "You lie!" as President Barack Obama addressed Congress last year, has a reputation among his peers as a frequent foreign traveler, these staff members said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly on the investigation.
Wilson confirmed earlier in the week that examiners with the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent nonpartisan agency established in 2008 following a wave of lawmaker scandals, had recently interviewed him about his use of per diem expense money.
Wilson said then that their focus was on his use of $12 to buy six small goblets in Afghanistan in August 2009.
However, Wilson acknowledged in an interview Thursday that the interrogation was more wide-ranging and covered other expenditures made on separate foreign trips, though he said he doesn't recall the details.
"I do not remember which trips they spoke about," Wilson told McClatchy. "I don't remember specifically."
Ahh, good ol' irony. How I've missed you. How quickly the fickle American voter forgets the reason the Republicans got kicked out of office in the first place. Can't blame the GOP from upgrading from career politicians to career lunatics, however. That's actually an improvement, in a sense.
I personally think we're going to have to go through a period of Republican government so awful that people will beg to have Obama, Pelosi, and Reid in charge again. The bad news is the country may not survive in recognizable form until that point.
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