Eddie Bernice Johnson: 'I Never Heard the Rules' on Scholarships

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson broke her silence in a scholarship scandal this morning, insisting that she had no idea the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation had rules against awarding college aid to her own relatives.

“I never heard the rules even discussed,” she told KRLD-AM (1080). “I can’t really blame anyone. I could have researched them myself. But the rules just came to me. One sheet came last year, which I didn’t read well, which was my mistake. They were really very ambiguous rules.”

At a news conference this morning, Republican challenger Stephen Broden said Johnson failed to properly publicize the scholarships, leaving qualified candidates out of the loop, and should face an investigation by a House ethics committee.

The Dallas Morning News reported on Sunday that since 2005 Johnson had awarded the scholarships to two of her grandsons, two great-nephews and two children of her top aide in Dallas, in violation of nepotism and residency rules set by the foundation.

Read more: (Todd J. Gillman, “Eddie Bernice Johnson: ‘I Never Heard the Rules’ on Scholarships,”Dallas Morning News, 09/02/10)