Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. has been under investigation for misuse of his office for fundraising, failure to disclose income, belated payment of taxes and possible help with a tax shelter for a company whose chief executive was a major donor.
The House ethics committee formally unveiled charges Thursday against Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) after efforts to reach a settlement apparently fell short, setting in motion a potentially historic trial of the 20-term congressman.
In a preliminary hearing on the case, a subcommittee disclosed 13 charges that lawmakers described as "very serious" violations of House rules and federal law. Rangel did not appear at the hearing -- his presence was not required -- but he submitted a written statement.
Rangel, 80, a decorated Korean War veteran who was first elected to Congress from his Harlem district in 1970, faced the choice of either admitting to a series of ethical misdeeds or forcing the preliminary phase of a trial by the Committee on Standards and Official Conduct, as the ethics panel is formally known.
In an opening statement as the hearing began Thursday afternoon, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) noted that there had been talk of negotiations on a settlement.
"Mr. Rangel . . . was given opportunities to negotiate a settlement under the investigation phase," he said. "We are now in the trial phase." He said Rangel faces "13 very serious allegations" relating to his conduct.
"For Mr. Rangel, these proceedings present a fair and public opportunity to be heard before his peers," said McCaul, the top Republican on the subcommittee. If proven, the conduct described in the charges "would violate multiple provisions of House rules and federal statutes," he said. Among them, he said, was failure to report more than $600,000 in income on his financial disclosure forms.
After hearing from two lawmakers who headed the ethics committee's investigative panel, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) adjourned Thursday's meeting, whose purpose she described as "organizational."
The hearing's start was delayed an hour by votes on the House floor, during which Rangel huddled on the Democratic side with members of the New York delegation and a few other close supporters.
At one point, Rep Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), a junior lawmaker from Queens, gave the dean of his state's congressional delegation a big hug. Others patted him on the back.
Upon leaving the floor, Rangel told reporters that he had no knowledge of a deal -- an arrangement that would have required the agreement of GOP lawmakers.
With his 40-year congressional legacy hanging in the balance, lawyers for the former chairman of the powerful tax-writing Ways and Means Committee negotiated with the nonpartisan attorneys for the committee until late Wednesday and continued the discussions Thursday morning.
Either way, Rangel faced an ignominious day. "Sixty years ago I survived a Chinese attack in North Korea, and as a result I haven't had a bad day since," Rangel told reporters before the hearing. "But today I have to reassess that statement."
At her weekly press briefing Thursday morning, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) deflected a question on whether the Rangel case would hurt Democrats in November and "stain" her legacy after she vowed in 2006 to "drain the swamp" of Republican misdeeds.
"Drain the swamp we did, because this was a terrible place, and we have made a tremendous difference, and I take great pride in that," she said. She noted that Democrats had already imposed on Rangel the "very serious penalty" of removing him from the Ways and Means Committee chairmanship.
One of the five longest-serving lawmakers in the House, Rangel -- who co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 -- has gone from a beloved figure in his caucus to a political pariah in less than two years. An investigative subcommittee has been investigating allegations, at Rangel's request after published reports, that he inappropriately lived in rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; did not pay taxes properly on a villa in the Dominican Republic; shielded hundreds of thousands dollars in personal assets by not properly disclosing them on his annual forms; and used his congressional office to raise money for the wing of a New York college named after him.
Rangel previously acknowledged mistakes on his financial disclosure forms and mishandling his taxes, and he privately agreed to apologize in public for some House rules violations. But he objected to suggestions that he improperly used his public office or helped donors who raised money for the college building.
After reprimanding him last spring for accepting corporate-financed travel, a punishment that prompted him to surrender his chairman's gavel, the ethics committee's Adjudicatory Subcommittee scheduled Thursday's meeting in a below-ground hearing room inside the Capitol Visitors Center.
Lofgren chairs both the full 10-member ethics committee and the eight-member adjudicatory panel empowered to oversee a Rangel trial.
Thursday's hearing effectively served as an arraignment, in which the prosecution -- a four-member team that was the investigative subcommittee -- presented the charges against Rangel and publicly released a full report outlining the case. If necessary, a full trial would be held in mid-September, after Congress returns from a nearly seven-week recess.
During Wednesday evening votes, Rangel brushed past reporters, declining to address the status of talks with his legal team. He told reporters that if he had reason to meet with them, he would. Late Wednesday, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.), a politically vulnerable freshman, told Politico she would call for Rangel's resignation "if the serious charges against him are accurate."
She joined Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho) in making that qualified call for resignation, with Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) the only Democrat to fully call for Rangel to step down ahead of Thursday's hearing.
Lawmakers and party strategists have suggested that, so far, the Rangel case has been a largely inside-the-Beltway matter, allowing for many Democrats to donate Rangel's political donations to charity without having to make any further statement on his tenure in office. That sentiment was echoed by a pair of freshman Democrats from Virginia at a think tank symposium Wednesday.
"I think it's a sad and isolated case that will have a limited impact," Rep. Gerald E. Connolly said. "I don't think it's going to be a dispositive issue in the election."
"I was at several festivals this weekend in conservative-leaning counties, and I didn't get asked a single time about it," Rep. Tom Perriello said.
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