The rotten congressman from Harlem, Charlie Rangel (D-NY), is finding himself in some hot water with the House Ethics Committee these days. This piece of work is as corrupt as the day is long and I hope that his trial derails any hopes that the
Democrats socialists have of keeping any kind of majority in the House after the election this fall. Where's Ms. Pelosi's shrill cries about the 'Culture of Corruption' now? Well, what goes around comes around Ms. Pelosi. Of course we may not need to wait too long until Rangel's attorney plays the race card against the white Republicans on the Ethics Committee..."This is clearly a case of racism against a fine upstanding citizen of Harlem!". That will be so predictable. And I'm sure if these same charges were brought against a white, conservative Republican from South Carolina we'd see the first public Crucifixion since the Roman Empire fell!
This is an excerpt of an article from The Politico, all emphasis is my own:
Ethics unveils 13 Rangel charges
By: John Bresnahan and Jonathan Allen and Richard E. Cohen
July 29, 2010 02:36 PM EDT
A scathing House ethics report charges that Rep. Charles Rangel, an iconic New York powerbroker, violated 13 ethics and federal regulations covering public officials, including pressuring lobbyists and corporations to cough up millions for a New York college building bearing Rangel’s name.
In releasing a "Statement of Alleged Violation" of against Rangel, investigators drew a portrait of a veteran lawmaker who used his office and staffers for his own personal benefit and aggrandizement, repeatedly running afoul of House financial disclosure rules. He now faces an ethics “trial” unless he’s able to cut a deal with the ethics committee.
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The headliner allegations are that he improperly solicited money from corporate officials and lobbyists for the Charles B. Rangel Public Policy Center in New York; that he failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of income and assets on financial disclosure forms; that he maintained multiple rent-stabilized apartments in violation of New York City rules; and failed to pay income taxes on a Dominican island resort home.
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Rangel is also accused of violating House gift rules and congressional banking regulations, and the ethics subcommittee says his conduct reflects “discredit on the House.”
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In the most serious set of allegations, ethics investigators - led by Reps. Gene Green (D-Texas) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) - charged that between 2005 and 2008, Rangel used his congressional staff “to develop a list of potential donors” to the Rangel Center, then mailed letters from his Capitol Hill office, on official letterhead, to those donors.
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And he lobbied his colleagues to approve millions of federal tax dollars for the Rangel Center.
Those getting Rangel solicitation letters included several corporate-affiliated charities, including those tied to Verizon, Ford, AT&T, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bristol-Meyes Squibb, and Wachovia, among others. Rangel also solicited money from mega-rich celebrity Donald Trump.
Rangel was seeking $30 million from these foundations.
As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Rangel had a role in setting tax rates on all these companies.
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Rangel also attempted to get federal earmarks to pay part of the estimated $30 million cost of the [Rangel Center]. In Sept. 2005, Rangel sent a letter to the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), a top member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, seeking a $3 million earmark for the Rangel Center.
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The ethics report also charges that Rangel consistently failed to report several assets on his financial disclosure forms between 1998 and 2007. These omissions totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Rangel did not report, or underreported rental income on a resort home in the Dominican Republican resort home, and he failed to indicate that the interest mortgage on the home - purchased in 1987 - was "forgiven" in 1993.
But Rangel also didn't properly report $146,000 in income from a Harlem brownstone, didn't disclose a bank account worth as much as $500,000, didn't disclose his stock or mutual fund holdings, or "numerous" transactions involving those holdings.
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Green, the top Democrat on the investigating subcommittee, outlined such details in an exhaustive probe by his panel. Investigators sent out 160 formal requests for documents, reviewed 28,000 pages of documents, held 60 meetings, deposed Rangel on Dec. 15, 2009, and met twice more with him.
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Now, in the congressional version of a trial, the lawmakers who investigated Rangel and the committee's staff lawyers will make the case that he broke the rules and should be punished by the House.
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Rangel and his Democratic colleagues have a lot riding not only on the outcome but on the conduct and length of the trial. Republicans have made clear they intend to turn Rangel into a campaign issue in districts across the country, tying past recipients of his campaign fund-raising help to his ethics troubles and turning the allegations against him into an argument that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has not done enough to "drain the swamp" in Washington.
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Full Story:
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=1F7D81F3-18FE-70B2-A8D14EE726D12E4C
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