Rep. Charles Rangel Guilty on 11 Ethics Charges

(By Fredreka Schouten, USA TODAY)

WASHINGTON — A House subcommittee Tuesday found veteran New York congressman Charles Rangel guilty of 11 counts of violating House ethics rules, the biggest setback in his congressional career spanning four decades.
The case now shifts to the full ethics committee, which will recommend punishment for the Harlem Democrat. It could include a public reprimand and fines.

The eight-member ethics subcommittee concluded Rangel broke House rules by soliciting millions of dollars in donations for a non-profit center bearing his name, housing a campaign office in a rent-stabilized Manhattan apartment, and failing to disclose assets and income and pay some taxes.

"This has been a difficult assignment, time-consuming and we have approached our duties diligently," the committee chairwoman, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said. "We have tried to act with fairness."

The ethics trial has been an embarrassing episode for Rangel, once the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and for Democrats, who lost control of the House on Nov. 2. Democrats took control of the chamber four years ago, promising to clean up corruption in Washington.

Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the subcommittee, said he hoped the results "would restore credibility to the House of Representatives."

The subcommittee failed to agree on only one charge — whether donations to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York violated the House rule that bars lawmakers from receiving gifts. But the eight lawmakers unanimously agreed that Rangel acted improperly by soliciting donations for the center, including from companies with business before his tax-writing committee.

Rangel, who walked out of the ethics trial Monday, did not have an immediate statement.

Ken Spain, spokesman for the House Republican campaign committee, called the ethics ruling "the nail in the coffin of what Nancy Pelosi promised would be the 'most ethical Congress in history.'

"The arrogance of power that defined the Democrats' reign over the House of Representatives was overwhelming rejected on Nov. 2," he said. "And today's ruling is further proof that the American people were right."