GOP caves and withdraws plan to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics after brutal backlash

Republicans in Congress are backing away from their proposal to end the independence of the Office of Congressional Ethics after their originally passed plan turned into a public relations disaster.

The Republican-led House of Representatives drew a swift media backlash after news broke on Monday evening that it had voted to neuter the OCE's powers to operate independently from the GOP-controlled House Ethics Committee.

By Tuesday morning, President-elect Donald Trump questioned whether this should really be a priority for the incoming congress, although he did say that he sympathized with their desire to stop the "unfair" OCE from hounding them.

Shortly afterward, the House GOP had an emergency meeting in which they voted to cut the proposed rules changes by unanimous consent. However, Washington Post reporter Robert Costa says that this issue isn't going away permanently, as many House Republicans want to "return to the issue soon" after the publicity surrounding the story has died down.