The House Committee on Ethics announced today there was insufficient evidence that Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm violated campaign-finance laws after he was elected to his first term.

The committee, meanwhile, says it has been asked to defer its consideration of the case by the Department of Justice, which is also investigating the contributions to Grimm’s campaign.

But in a statement released this morning, the bipartisan panel maintained its jurisdiction to oversee any matters relating to a successful campaign to the House of Representatives. In other words, Grimm is not off the hook for anything that may have occurred during his 2010 House run, at least as far as his colleagues in Washington are concerned.

In a case that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee played up during the 2012 election, the ethics committee in July began a review of whether Grimm violated campaign-finance laws by seeking and accepting illegal contributions, created false reports and improperly sought assistance from a foreign national.

Grimm’s troubles began when congregants of the influential Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto complained that he was pressuring them for illegal campaign donations above legal limits.

The FBI has questioned at least four people connected to the case, according to The Daily News. The foreign national in question is Ofer Biton, an Israeli citizen and top Grimm fundraiser, who may have acted as a go-between for the Republican lawmaker and Rabbi Pinto’s congregation.

But the ethics committee determined it “could not establish with a sufficient certainty that a violation occurred after Representatvie Grimm became a Member of Congress.”

Grimm himself has denied any wrongdoing.

The freshman lawmaker who was first elected in 2010 with strong tea party support, handily won his re-election bid against Democrat Mark Murphy.

20121126 Statement of the Chairman and Ranking Member PDF PDF

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