Uncategorized

Rangel Found Guilty of Violating House Ethics Rules

By Alex Altman | @aaltman82 | November 16, 2010 | +

After a two-year investigation, a truncated trial conducted partly without the defendant and several hours of deliberations, a House ethics subcommittee found Rep. Charles Rangel guilty of 11 ethics violations. The findings will be sent to the full committee, who will make a recommendation to the House regarding Rangel’s punishment.

“We have tried to act with fairness, led only by the facts and the law, and I believe we have accomplished that mission,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the California Democrat chairing the adjudicatory subcommittee–composed of four Democrats and four Republicans–that served as the jury for the rare trial, the first of its kind in the House since Rep. James Traficant’s in 2002. Rangel had been accused of 13 charges, including misusing rent-controlled apartments, using his office to solicit donations to an educational center and improperly filing taxes and financial statements. The committee found he had violated all but one charge; two of the counts were rolled into one in the final verdict.

The decision wasn’t a surprise. After Rangel yesterday walked out of the Longworth House Office building serving as a de facto courtroom, the subcommittee lawyer acting as the matter’s prosecutor spent just minutes cycling through the evidence against Rangel. After playing video clips of a speech in which the Harlem Democrat admitted wrongdoing, the lawyer, Blake Chisam, called no witnesses, an apparent testament to the strength of the case against a defendant who openly copped to breaking some rules. After leaving the room to deliberate, the committee agreed yesterday afternoon that the facts of the case were not in dispute, ending the fact-finding portion of the trial.

Buffeted by scandal, Rangel relinquished the Ways and Means gavel earlier this year but was elected this month to a 21st term representing his Harlem district. He is unlikely to suffer the same fate as Traficant, a Democrat who was subsequently expelled from the chamber for taking bribes. Among the punishments he could face are a formal reprimand or censure.

Related Topics: Uncategorized

  • Latest on Swampland

    Pete Souza / White House
    Gay Marriage May 24, 2012

    Obama’s Persuasive Powers on Gay Marriage Manifest in Maryland

    When President Obama endorsed gay marriage earlier this month, the media grappled with two basic political questions: Was his personal “evolution” a case of  a politician transparently following a national trend toward accepting same-sex unions (accelerated, perhaps, by his chatty number two), and would it hurt his re-election chances by alienating socially conservative voters like black churchgoers? Sure, there was a recognition that it marked a gratifying moment for gay marriage advocates—as well as some grumbling about the President’s view that it remains a state issue, not a federal one. But by and large, there were few suggestions that one man, even the President, would shift public opinion on the issue or affect public policy. Based on a new Public Policy Polling survey out of Maryland, it seems this possibility was underestimated.

    From our Partners

    Lewis Eisenberg, Major Romney Donor, Accuses Obama Of Demonizing Wall StreetHuffPost Politics

    2012 Election May 24, 2012

    Cherokee Zero

    Apparently, Massachusetts voters don’t mind that Elizabeth Warren foolishly identified herself as a Native American early in her academic career–it was, apparently, a case of family pride and wishful thinking about a Cherokee ancestor. That’s good. Warren may be the best public figure when it comes to explaining the depredations of the financial industry and [...]

  • grape_crush

    Good. Nice to know that members of a political party can hold one of their own accountable.

  • http://gum0nshoe.wordpress.com gumOnShoe

    I find “legislative investigations” to not only be a waste of time and money, but inane. If a member of congress has violated the law, it seems to me that there ought to be a reasonable system of due process provided by the Judicial branch of government in order to deal with the wanton ways of senators or representatives…

    The only time the legislative branch should ever hold sessions which do not directly involve drafting law, should be for fact finding related to research around areas where they should be doing law or formal processes established by the constitution.

    Regardless of what Rangel did, he deserved his day in a real court, with a real judge, and a real body of impartial peers consisting of members of the United States citizenry that encompasses more than just legislative politicians.

    Otherwise, these proceedings will serve as nothing more or less than political posturing and/or witch hunts. Their findings and verdicts will always be suspect. They will ruin lives with out the blindness that justice which ought to ruin in ways worse than demanded of the crime.

  • http://gum0nshoe.wordpress.com gumOnShoe

    It won’t translate out of the village, so meh.
    ·
    When the use of letterhead becomes a $2,000,000 issue you’d think things had gone too far.
    ·
    This could have easily been left in the hands of the IRS and the courts.

  • grape_crush

    That’s all good stuff. Maybe Congress can create legislation that does something like that.
    .
    /snark

  • grape_crush

    Oh, and this is a lie:

    Ken Spain, a spokesman for the House GOP campaign arm, called the decision “the nail in the coffin of what [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi promised would be the ‘most ethical Congress in history.”’

    The charges against Rangel spanned more than a decade. If anything, finding Rangel in violation proves the opposite of what the GOP is spinning.

  • grape_crush
  • http://www.thedailyalmanac.com thelastrefuge

    from Cspan coverage of report.
    Ethics Subcommittee Decision on Rep. Rangel Ethics Violations
    The House Ethics Adjudicatory Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, delivers its decision on ethics charges of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY). http://www.newslook.com/videos/266638-ethics-subcommittee-decision-on-rep-rangel-ethics-violations?autoplay=true

  • newfreedomblog

    Usually when you drain a swamp, you eliminate most all of the water. Why then is Rangel still in Congress if found guilty?

  • tyrantking

    If any of us in the real world conducted our business in the same manner that politicians conduct theirs, i.e. trading campaign contributions for favors, lining up pork for our districts irrespective of need or who’s paying, authorizing dis-honest campaign ads which serve only to lower the level of debate in elections, we’d go bankrupt defending our selves in court, got to prison or worse. In Washington, it’s just par for the course. It’s no wonder he was easily re-elected. A Congressman calling another Congressman unethical is like the pot calling the kettle black.

  • ohiolibb

    You see, rusty, in America, we have these called elections. The winner of the election is the person who goes to congress. That means that it takes something pretty serious to get removed. And, since it has to be severe, that means we have to go through a full trial and get congress to expel one of it’s own members. Considering that Rangel was found guilty by a sub-committee, the odds of this going to a full chamber vote and/or finding a way to expel him are pretty good. However, in a democracy, we like to follow the rule of law, something is apparently quite foreign to you.

  • herby002

    Case in point:

    Sen. Vitter’s Diaper Fetish and Another Republican Caught Solicting Sex…From a Man in a Toilet

    This Vitter thing just doesn’t want to go away. One of the Madams he was working with to procure women for him says he should be prosecuted (it is true that what he was doing actually is a crime) while another Madam says he “wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary” with her girls over the years (except that he was into a diaper fetish, just like Holy Joe).

    http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/56689/

  • stuartzechman

    Charlie Rangel should resign.

blog comments powered by Disqus