http://www.daily-journal.com/archives/dj/display.php?id=403386Weller still not talking about story
09/13/2007, 11:00 am
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By Edward Felker
Washington Bureau
efelker@qconline.com
U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Morris, quietly returned to work in the House this week without breaking his silence about a published report that questioned his land deals in Nicaragua or responding to two election challengers who used the report to denigrate his commitment to the 11th Congressional District.
Weller missed all of last week's House votes while tending to his and his wife's 1-year-old daughter and was granted a leave of absence by the House on Sept. 4. On Monday, he appeared on the House floor in support of a bill he sponsored to rename a post office in Princeton and entered a statement into the Congressional Record indicating how he would have voted on the 18 roll calls held the previous week.
Through his spokesman, Weller on Wednesday declined an interview request.
He has yet to respond to a Chicago Tribune investigative story published last Friday that reported Weller appeared to have filed inaccurate House disclosure reports about the purchases and sales of vacation lots on the Pacific Ocean coast of Nicaragua starting in 2002.
Those transactions took place in part when he was calling for the 2005 passage of the CAFTA trade pact with Central America, which was intended to make it easier for American investors to do business in the region.
His investments also came when he was a member of a House International Relations Committee panel on Central American affairs and was engaged to and then married his wife, Zury Rios Sosa.