North Jersey: 1 GOP says Gottheimer email touting fund-raising totals may have broken House ethics rules

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The political arm of the House Republican caucus criticized Rep. Josh Gottheimer's office on Tuesday for using an official congressional email account to tout the Wyckoff Democrat's campaign fund-raising totals, an apparent violation of House rules.

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Meredith McGehee, a government ethics expert at the Campaign Legal Center, said the rule is one of the few areas where the ethics committee of the House has consistently applied the rules and punished violators. "It's one of those clear lines," she said. "It's the line you don't cross." But she said there would likely be leniency if it was a mistake. "If you show it was a mistake, that it was not willful and not repetitive, they say don't do that again," she said.

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