Free Republic

Here's a helpful tip if you ever plan to run for federal office: make sure to curry favor with journalists so that if you're ever charged with multiple ethics violations, those journalists won't ask you difficult questions. It works - just ask Charlie Rangel! The New York congressman, chairman of the House panel in charge of the tax code, will likely be charged in a number of violations of the ethics code. Among the alleged violations is a charge that he extended a $500 million tax loophole to an oil executive in exchange for donations to the Charles B. Rangel...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi took stewardship of the House two years ago with a pledge to "drain the swamp" and clean up ethical abuses in Congress. Now an investigation of one of her party's best-known members is putting her in an uncomfortable spot. Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York is the subject of an investigation by a House ethics panel over his ownership of several rent-controlled apartments in New York, his failure to pay taxes on an offshore rental property, and his use of office letterhead to solicit donations for a public-policy school that would bear his name. Last month,...

A steady stream of revelations about erroneous financial records and questionable ethics dating back to July has put the spotlight once again on New York Rep. Charles B. Rangel, prompting observers to wonder aloud whether it's time for Rangel to step down from his committee chairmanship. The Democratic chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee has been at the center of a seemingly endless swirl of questions about his activities. He came under fire this week after The New York Times reported that Rangel worked to protect a tax shelter for Nabors Industries, an oil company whose chief...