By Scott Shepard, Cox News Online, February 6, 2007

7 Feb 2007 // The Washington legal watchdog group that helped focus public attention on ethical lapses in Congress during the last few years has a new target - the executive branch.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) issued a report Wednesday entitled “Criminals and Scoundrels,” identifying what CREW described as “the 25 most corrupt Bush Administration officials.”

The new report is a follow-up to the report CREW issued in 2005 called “Beyond DeLay,” identifying the “20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress.” Six of the 20 in that report are no longer in Congress, the result of retirements, convictions and election defeats.

The new report does not include Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former aide to Vice President Cheney, who is currently on trial for perjury in the federal investigation of the outing of a Central Intelligence Agency covert officer.

CREW said it did not include Libby because the organization serves as general counsel to Joseph and Valerie Wilson, the CIA officer whose cover was blown by the administration, and because the federal judge in the case prohibited CREW from commenting on the Libby case during the trial.

For the full list of the 25 Bush administration officials named in CREW’s report, go to the organization’s web site: www.citizensforethics.org.