Move along - nothing to see here!
Posted on 11/15/2010 8:10:33 PM PST by Second Amendment First
The House ethics committee ruled on Monday that there was evidence to support 13 counts of misconduct by Representative Charles B. Rangel, and began considering whether to formally convict and recommend punishment against him.
The ruling came after a dramatic and puzzling appearance by Mr. Rangel, 80, in which he protested that he could no longer afford to pay his lawyers, and indignantly walked out of the proceedings, calling them unfair.
Committee members were unmoved. Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, noted dryly that Mr. Rangel, a Harlem Democrat, was responsible for paying his lawyers and that he had been advised by the committee beginning in 2008 to form a legal defense fund to do so.
With Mr. Rangel absent, the panel listened to its chief counsel as he methodically presented the evidence against Mr. Rangel, which was based on 549 exhibits, dozens of witness interviews and thousands of pages of financial documents. Members then met in executive session and later announced they had found the facts in the charges against Mr. Rangel to be “uncontested.”
Those charges included accusations that Mr. Rangel had accepted rent-stabilized apartments from a Manhattan developer, failed to pay income taxes on rent from a Dominican villa and solicited charitable donations from individuals with business before Congress.
Mr. Rangel’s decision not to mount a public defense startled some members of the committee; he has been publicly expressing his eagerness to tell his side of the story for more than a year, and promising his constituents that he could disprove the accusations.
But the walkout spared Mr. Rangel the embarrassment of being publicly confronted with the unsavory details of the case.
Given that he has not sufficiently challenged the accusations against him, his strategy allowed him instead to plead in the court of public opinion.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
But for all the detail in the committee’s reports, a key question remained unanswered: Why the charges involving Mr. Rangel’s four rent-stabilized apartments at Lenox Terrace in Harlem focused solely on one unit, which he used as a campaign office. Mr. Rangel and his wife were also allowed to live in the three other rent-stabilized apartments, at rents hundreds of dollars per month below market rates, but the committee declined to charge him with violations on the ban on House members accepting gifts of more than $50 per year.
Sorry Charlie, it’s under the bus no matter how fat you are.
Too bad this didn’t holdover until next year.
Sure the penalty will be a slap on the Rolex, er, wrist.
The question is why Rangel thinks he deserves special treatment - his politics or his melanin content. Both are irrelevant.
Move along - nothing to see here!
I think they should suspend discussions until after New Year’s. Everyone should be in a better mood then with the scars of the elections no longer painful. Isn’t that perfectly reasonable?
“Both are irrelevant.”
They should be irrelevant, but unfortunately they are not.
With Mr. Rangel absent, the panel listened to its chief counsel as he methodically presented the evidence against Mr. Rangel, which was based on 549 exhibits, dozens of witness interviews and thousands of pages of financial documents. Members then met in executive session and later announced they had found the facts in the charges against Mr. Rangel to be "uncontested." ... the walkout spared Mr. Rangel the embarrassment of being publicly confronted with the unsavory details of the case.
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It’s really bad when the NY Times can’t even offer a defense.
Has anyone checked his freezer?
Why don't you just pack your bags and catch a flight to a Caribbean island that doesn't have extradition, while you still have a passport? Then, you can spend your remaining days with your dirty money, sleeping in a lounge chair.
He will most likely be sentenced to an apology and be forced to promise that it will never happen again, considering the poor thing can’t even afford legal representation!
Hey, I actually listened to the news tonight on one of the alphabet channels and it is no big deal. He might have done a few things wrong but they don’t amount to much and he really didn’t mean to do it. /s
Charie cooked up the last minute “problem” with his attorney so he can complain that he was railroaded without benefit of legal representation.
His illegal activities are nothing compared to what could be found out about Zero, but glad they are catching at least one of the crooks. One down, many to go!
A must watch expose of the greasy Senator by Jason Mattera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdtFWCrCh0s
So, why would the NYT and the democrats be willing to sacrifice one, possibly two, of their own? Mad Maxine is up next.
I would venture a guess that their motive is to distract attention from even worst corruption and sedition by dems in high places. Cutting Charlie and Maxine loose gives ‘someone’ cover in some way. This sort of crap has been going on for decades by folks in both parties. This is nothing new. What is new, is the dems going after two of their most prominent black congress critters. Makes one go . . .Hmmmm???
Well if we throw Charlie and Maxine into the "volcano", we damn sure can't throw OBummer in because that would be too much racism at one time......Just saying ;^)
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