Bombshell in The House

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Mallightco bought a 4% interest in an oil-and-gas well known as Sabine Lake Prospect for $9,120. On the very day the purchase became final -- May 10, 1988 -- Mallightco resold the interest to Union Rheinische Petroleum Inc., a West German company, for $440,000. The well at the time showed some prospect of becoming a commercial producer but has since been plugged. Wright's trustee then sold the Speaker's interest in Mallightco for $350,000, less $80,000 to pay off debts to the firm -- a handsome profit from a hopeless dry hole. Wright insists he knew nothing about the well deal, but the ethics committee wants to probe deeper -- especially because the sale of the well was in part arranged by Morris Jaffe and his son Doug, two Texans who are trying to sell a $3 billion training-aircraft system to the Pentagon.

So far, most Congressmen detect no great excitement among their constituents about the Wright investigation. But the longer the affair drags on, and the more heavily the press and television focus on eventual public hearings, the more likely voters are to pay unfavorable attention. "This is no ten-kiloton violation," says Ted Van Dyk, a noted Washington political consultant. "But it's hard to convince the folks at home after Meese, Tower, Hart et al."

The betting now among relatively impartial experts is that the full House will eventually vote on some kind of sanction against Wright. They also expect the ballot will be very close. If that is the case, whether Wright wins or loses becomes almost irrelevant; either way, his effectiveness as Speaker would be undermined. Like Ed Meese, he would probably hang on to his job for a while for appearances' sake, then quietly resign (no one expects him to leave the House). The Speaker still has time to turn that glum scenario around, but he will have to mount a more convincing defense than any he has been able to produce to date.