WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to open the first impeachment probe of a sitting judge in almost two decades.
With little discussion, the Democratic-led panel voted unanimously to launch an investigation against U.S. District Judge Thomas Porteous, a Louisiana jurist who is charged with presiding over a trial in which the lawyers involved had given him money.
He’s also accused of filing for bankruptcy under a false name.
Porteous was appointed by President Clinton.
The Judicial Conference of the United States reported in June that Porteous may deserve impeachment. If the full House impeaches Porteous, the case would advance to a Senate trial. A guilty verdict would remove him from the bench.
It would be the first impeachment of a federal judge since 1989, when the House impeached Walter Nixon of Mississippi and the Senate convicted Alcee L. Hastings, now a Democratic congressman from Florida, who had been impeached the year before.
Neither Porteous, his attorney, Kyle Schonekas, nor Chief Judge Helen G. Berrigan of Louisiana’s Eastern District was available for comment.
