Rep. Kathleen Rice (D., N.Y.) took nearly $6,000 in gifts from rich donors, according to financial disclosure documents, the New York Post reported.
One of the two gifts was a $3,300 private plane ride from New York to Boston funded by billionaire hedge-funder Lee Ainslie. The other was $2,500 gift for an opening Gala at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston, from Thomas Lane, a law firm partner.
Congressional rules bar house members from receiving gifts valued at more than $50, but the House Ethics Committee waived Rice’s gifts. The Ethics Committee confirmed that it was not pursuing an investigation into the gifts, but declined comment.
Rep. Rice’s office said that the plane ride was to accompany Ainslie and his wife to show support for a local district attorney whose family member was murdered.
"Two of Congresswoman Rice’s close friends had to travel to Massachusetts to meet with a local district attorney after their family member was murdered" Rice’s spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon. "The victim’s family traveled to this meeting on a privately-owned plane, and asked Congresswoman Rice—who was previously their district attorney—to join them for the meeting and offer her support during what was a very difficult and tragic time for their family."
Government watchdogs questioned the decision to drop the case. The rules are "not meant to exempt major donors like Ainslie and Lane, who clearly have sought influence with Rice in the past," according to the National Legal and Policy Center. NLPC chairman Ken Boehm called on Rice to return the gifts, saying it "would be the proper thing to do."
"She cannot say she’s just a friend. Ainslie is a major donor," he told the \Free Beacon in a phone interview. "This doesn't pass the straight face test, the gift was simply too big and it looks like major donors currying favors with the House of Representatives."
Rice’s spokesman said the event Rice attended with Lane was also a matter of friendship.
"Lane have been close friends for more than two decades" and he had "asked Congresswoman Rice to go as his guest" to the Gala.
Rice, who has received maximum contributions of $5,400 from Ainslie in 2016, has collected nearly $81,000 from Ainslie and his wife for her previous campaigns for congress and district attorney, according to the New York Post; Lane has donated $82,550 to her campaigns.
Rice is running for reelection against retired Marine Col. David Gurfein in New York’s Fourth District, which covers suburban Nassau County.