"Grumblers on both sides want to gut the ethics office... because it has been fulfilling its mission to put life into the lawmakers' own stultified ethics process, to penetrate the murk of misbehavior and keep the public better informed." Given these threats, a number of outside government groups, watchdogs and editorial writers campaigned that year to ensure the survival of the OCE into another session of Congress. They sent letters supporting the OCE to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-House Minority Leader John Boehner. The Sunlight Foundation stated at the time: "More than anything else the Office of Congressional Ethics has helped to reveal to the public the patent absurdity of the self-policing oversight that members provide through the House Ethics Committee." On January 2, 2017, one day before the 115th United States Congress was scheduled to convene for its first session, House Republicans held a "surprise vote" to effectively place the OCE under direct control of the House Ethics Committee, therefore making any future review of potential violations of criminal law by members of Congress subject to approval following referral to the Ethics Committee or an appropriate federal law enforcement agency. These new rules also bar the OCE from independently releasing statements publicly on pending or completed investigations. This move was immediately met with criticism by Democratic leaders in both the House and the Senate, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, claiming that "ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress", and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying that the GOP had failed to keep their promise to "drain the swamp", referring to the frequent use of the phrase by President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican leaders during the 2015 campaign. The 119–74 vote reflected the frustration of many lawmakers who questioned the non-partisanship of the OCE. In a statement, Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) defended pushing the rules amendment because it "builds upon and strengthens the existing Office of Congressional Ethics by maintaining its primary area of focus of accepting and reviewing complaints from the public and referring them, if appropriate, to the Committee on Ethics." House Republicans reversed their plan to gut the OCE less than 24 hours after the initial vote, under bipartisan pressure from Representatives of both parties, their constituents and the President-elect, Donald Trump. In addition to negative Trump tweets, criticism was widespread including from Judicial Watch, the Project on Government Oversight, former Representative