Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.) may have violated House ethics rules by going with five other Democratic legislators on a junket to the Caribbean island of St. Martin. The trip was paid for by Citibank and other corporate sponsors, according to The Hill magazine.
 

Several lawmakers took a post-election trip to a luxurious Caribbean resort that may have breached House ethics rules because of corporate involvement.

Against a backdrop of corporate logos, two of the lawmakers thanked Citigroup, Pfizer, IBM and AT&T for their roles. The ethics committee approved the trip, but the rules bar lawmakers from taking trips lasting more than two days if corporations are underwriting or organizing any part of them.

Citigroup in particular could be a problem because they benefited from the TARP bailout passed by Congress just weeks before the junket. According to the article, at least two of the legislators, including Kilpatrick, publicly thanked the corporate sponsors at the event, acknowledging that they knew the trip was underwritten by corporations that frequently have business pending before Congress.

The article cites Meredith McGehee, an ethics expert at the Campaign Legal Center, who said that even if the funds were laundered through a nonprofit foundation, “If members of Congress are accepting these financial benefits of housing, food, airplane [travel], the source matters. Members are not allowed to let these foundations be conduits for this money. The source of the resources for this travel becomes a critical question.”