US: In a stand-off in Congress over ethics investigations, the majority Republicans appear to have blinked first and given the Democratic minority on Capitol Hill a rare moment of triumph.
Speaker Dennis Hastert emerged from a meeting of House Republicans yesterday to announce a willingness "to step back" and revise a controversial rule change that led to a three-month shutdown of the ethics committee.
The decision is a potentially lethal setback for House majority leader Tom DeLay.
At the heart of the dispute is a controversy swirling around DeLay over his acceptance of overseas trips and gifts financed by lobbyists and fund-raising methods in his native Texas.
In January, Republicans changed the rules governing the ethics committee in such a way that DeLay was shielded from further investigation.
The committee had admonished DeLay three times last year for what it considered inappropriate official behaviour. The change in January dispensed with a rule requiring the ethics committee to continue considering a complaint against a House member if there was a deadlock between the committee's five Republicans and five Democrats.
A new rule called for automatic dismissal of an ethics complaint when a deadlock occurred. The Republican members of the ethics committee were also changed around, leading to charges from Democrats that it had been stuffed with DeLay loyalists.
However, the Democrats refused to work the committee, and in the face of growing public outrage against the majority party speaker Hastert called a meeting yesterday to undo the damage. He said he would send a letter to Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi which is expected to offer a compromise.
House ethics rules forbid members from accepting junkets from lobbyists and the Washington Post last week revealed that DeLay's 2000 trip to London and St Andrews was paid for with the American Express card of lobbyist Jack Abramoff - who is under criminal investigation over his dealings with Indian tribes that run casinos.
The leading Democrat on the ethics committee, congressman Alan Mollohan, said that if the Republicans rescind the rule changes Democrats would vote to let the ethics committee operate. They also want another rule restored that was removed at Mr DeLay's insistence. That required a party leader to step down if charged in a court.
A grand jury in Texas is investigating a political action committee created by DeLay and had already indicted three members.
The capitulation by Republicans will embolden Democrats at a time when they are trying to face down the Bush administration over the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.
The Senate foreign relations committee has widened its inquiries into Bolton it was revealed yesterday. It has decided to conduct formal interviews with more than 20 witnesses, including a former deputy director of the CIA and a former assistant secretary of state who clashed with Bolton on issues related to intelligence.
It will also interview Thomas Hubbard, a former ambassador to South Korea who contradicted testimony by Mr Bolton that he had approved a speech Bolton gave in South Korea attacking the North Korean leader.
The White House is moving to shore up support for both Mr DeLay and Mr Bolton. President Bush praised the beleaguered majority leader at a Texas function on Tuesday, and gave him a lift back to Washington in Air Force One.
Vice-president Dick Cheney has meanwhile been calling Republican senators to urge support for Mr Bolton, who is opposed by Democrats because of his disdain for the UN and alleged attempts to harden up intelligence about Cuba's weapons programmes.
The White House is reported to be working on a three-point strategy: rebutting the charges against Bolton, making the argument about the UN's rather than the nominee's past conduct, and working to ensure there are enough votes to confirm Bolton in the full Senate which has a 55-44 Republican majority. Four Republican Senators have voiced reservations about Bolton.
Meanwhile in another partisan row, a poll shows that Republicans in the Senate may lose public support if they vote to change the rules and ban the filibuster tactic that Democrats have used to block several judicial nominations.
In a Washington Post-ABC News poll, two out of three Americans said they opposed changing the rules to make it easier for Republican leaders to win confirmation of President Bush's nominees. The survey also recorded a decline in support for the centrepiece of Bush's domestic agenda, changing Social Security to include private accounts.