Two House Ethics Committee Members Tainted by Rangel Cash

National Legal & Policy Center ^ | July 29, 2010 | Peter Flaherty

[jazusamo]

The eight members of the House Ethics Committee sit in judgment on Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), but it is hard to see how at least two of them can be impartial when they have received campaign funds from Rangel’s National Leadership PAC.

According to Federal Election Commission records, Rep. Ben Chandler (D-KY), in photo, received two contributions of $5,000 each during the 2004 election cycle, on 12/15/03 and 1/20/04.  Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-NC) received contributions of $1,000 and $2,000 during the 2004 cycle, on 6/29/04 and  7/13/04 respectively.

A third member of the Ethics Committee, Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), recognized the inherent conflict of investigating Rangel and accepting campaign money from him. He received two contributions of $5,000 each during the 2006 cycle, on 3/30/06  and 10/24/06. He also accepted $5,000 during the 2008 cycle, on 9/25/07. He returned all  $15,000 on May 1, 2009.

According to OpenSecrets.com:

Welch has refunded not only $15,000 in contributions back to Rangel’s leadership PAC as we identified, but also $4,000 in contributions back to Rangel’s candidate committee, which was missing from the FEC data.

Chandler and Butterfield should do the same or they should recuse themselves from the Rangel probe.

The members of the Ethics Committee are:

Zoe Lofgren,
Chair, California D

Jo Bonner,
Ranking Republican Member, Alabama R

Ben Chandler, Kentucky D

Mike Conaway, Texas R

G.K. Butterfield, North Carolina D

Charles Dent, Pennsylvania R

Kathy Castor, Florida  D

Gregg Harper, Mississippi R

Peter Welch, Vermont D

Michael McCaul, Texas R

[jazusamo]

fyi

[FrankR]

It appears that if the ethics committee did what it supposed to do, there would be no democrats left in Congress.

[jazusamo]

Good point...This is rich, two Dems on the committee choose to ignore ethics.

[RickB444]

Guess we can rename them the No Ethics committee then. Does it surprise anyone there is a D next to their names?

[SeaHawkFan]

To be fair, I think the Democrats on t he committee want him gone just as much as the Republicans; and the amounts contributed to them is not nearly enough to get anyone to go easy on Rangle. They should give it back, but it’s not like they got a considerable amount of money. If anything, it might put more pressure on them to be harsh with Rangle.

Rangle is going to resign before the trial starts. He just wants to hold aon as long as possible to get the best deal he can get. Resigning now does him no good.

[jazusamo]

I believe you’re right and like you say, they should definitely give it back.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I want to grab Nancy Pelosi, and stick the microphone in her face, and get her comments about Charlie Rangel.

She famously said that the Republicans cultivated a “culture of corruption” when they were in charge in Congress. And that she would ensure that good Democrats would have the most ethical Congress ever, or words to that effect.

So I would love to hear what she has to say about Democrat corruption. Has she said anything about Charlie Rangel? Will she; is she on speaking terms with her subjects/colleagues in the Democrat caucus?????

[jazusamo]

I posted this this morning, Pelosi defended her "Drain the Swamp" thing, it's laughable.

Rangel reportedly cuts deal on ethics as Pelosi defends record

[chiefqc]

And the surprise is what?