Ethics complaint filed against Summer Lee
“I think taxpayers deserve clarity."
A Pittsburgh Jewish community member has filed a House Ethics Committee complaint against U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, who represents Squirrel Hill.
In the July 22 complaint, Jeremy Kazzaz alleges that Lee’s office improperly used House resources and the social media account Dear White Staffers for campaign and political activity.
Originally created as an anonymous space for junior congressional staff to complain, the Dear White Staffers account is believed to be controlled by Philip Bennett.
Bennett is Lee’s director of operations. He previously worked for U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
The Dear White Staffers Instagram account includes posts accusing Israel of genocide and the United States Capitol Police of traveling to Israel for training. It has republished voluminous anti-Israel posts, and earlier this summer collaborated on a post calling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hunt down and “sh**t/k*ll” people mentioned in the Epstein files.
Kazzaz’s complaint alleges that Bennett engaged in prohibited campaign and political activity through the account, creating posts during the standard workday.
The complaint cites the social media account’s advocacy for candidates like Abdul El-Sayed and William Lawrence, an anti-Israel progressive candidate running for Congress in Michigan.
The complaint also alleges that Bennett used the account for “conduct not reflecting creditably on the House.”
Kazzaz does not allege that Lee personally performed prohibited campaign work or operates the Dear White Staffers account. Instead, he said that under longstanding committee precedent, “each Member is responsible for ensuring that employees are aware of and adhere to House rules and that House resources are used for proper purposes.”
He contends that Lee bears “supervisory responsibility” for failing to prevent Bennett’s activities.
Kazzaz told the Chronicle that the Dear White Staffers account started as a “cutesy airing of grievances of staffers about their bosses.”
The account took a “sharp turn,” however when Bennett joined Lee’s office, Kazzaz said.
“I think taxpayers deserve clarity,” he said. “Is this person on the campaign side in the middle of the day? How is it possible that this is taking place? Is he using government resources and his time to actively campaign?”
In addition to the campaigning, Kazzaz said that some of the posts contain “overt hostility and rhetoric towards the Jewish community.”
The account has even attacked other members of the Democratic caucus, he said.
Kazzaz said the Ethics Committee is the only body that can examine the issues he’s raised since Congress isn’t subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.
“I think I raised concerns that anybody observing the account can see,” he said. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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