The Senate Ethics Committee Once Again Finds Nothing to Sanction

The Senate Ethics Committee didn’t formally sanction anyone for bad behavior in 2025 — or in the past 19 years, either.

Tourists walk along the Capitol Building.

Tourists walk by the Capitol in Washington DC. Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA via AP

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics did not formally punish anyone during 2025 — continuing a streak of nearly two decades in which it has not issued a single “disciplinary sanction” despite numerous scandals.

Of 181 alleged Senate rules violations the Senate Ethics Committee reviewed last year, it issued no “private or public letters of admonition” and no case before it resulted in a “disciplinary sanction,” according to a NOTUS review of a new report the committee issued Saturday.

The Senate Ethics Committee dismissed 150 cases “for lack of subject matter jurisdiction” and culled another 10 because complainants “failed to provide sufficient facts as to any material violation of the Senate rules beyond mere allegation or assertion.”