As a former committee head, however, Mr. Recabarren was a marked man.
Still, former committee members said that it represented a "stealth bailout".
Sidney Drell, a leading American physicist and a former committee member said: "It was not renewed.
Daniel Jones, a former committee staffer who led the torture inquiry, criticized the preservation as inadequate.
She was a tech-savvy former committee researcher for the Pennsylvania Senate when she left to teach.
John D. Dingell of Michigan, a Democrat and former committee chairman, said the authorization was "a fishing expedition".
But this system has gone awry, according to dealers, collectors, former committee members and others familiar with the committee's workings.
Mr. Jones, a former committee staff member, is very close to Matt Rhoades, Mr. Romney's campaign manager, and has been advising the campaign for several months.
The former committee head was an executive of Home Depot, where Mr. Grasso holds a director's slot, which he now promises to relinquish.
Sabrina Corlette, a senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Center on Health Insurance Reforms and a former committee aide to then-Sen.
A person familiar with the ethics committee's deliberations said that the three former committee members signed off on the decision to exonerate Mr. Ward.
