CyberSmokeBlog officially declares Representative Rangel not corrupt - "Charlie you're Not Corrupt!"

Committee backs censure for Representative Rangel
POST WIRE SERVICES
November 18, 2010

WASHINGTON — The House Ethics Committee today backed censure for Representative Charlie Rangel today by a nine-to-one vote.

The committee also called on the Harlem representative to pay any unpaid taxes for financial and fundraising misconduct.

The House will likely consider a censure motion after Thanksgiving. If it passes, Rangel would suffer the embarrassment of standing before his colleagues and receiving an oral rebuke by the speaker.

Censure is the most serious punishment short of expulsion that can be meted out by the House.

The panel's vote came after a weepy and apologetic Representative Rangel cried as he spoke to the committtee today after its chief counsel recommended that he be censured.

United States Representative Charlie Rangel waits for an elevator in the Rayburn House Office building. (Getty Images)

“I don’t know how much longer I have to live,” Rangel added, his gravelly voice almost inaudible.

Facing the committee members, he asked them to “see your way clear to say, ’This member was not corrupt.’”

Earlier in the day, chief counsel Blake Chisam called for the punishment despite the veteran New York congressman’s plea, in a prepared statement in advance of the hearing, for “a drop of fairness and mercy.”

Chisam and Rangel argued their positions at a public hearing on sanctions, where the 80-year-old congressman acknowledged making mistakes in handling his finances and said he wasn’t there to “retry this case.”

He did say he wished the committee would weigh, in considering its vote on punishment, how the House had handled previous cases involving lawmakers who were enriched by activities they undertook that were judged to be in violation of the chamber’s rules.

Rangel spoke calmly without notes as he faced the committee. He repeatedly denied he was corrupt or crooked, sparking a clash with Representative Michael McCaul, Republican-Texas.

McCaul questioned whether Rangel’s conduct was, in fact, corrupt.

He noted that Rangel targeted donors for a college center named after him, people who had legislative issues that Rangel could influence in the Ways and Means Committee.

Rangel, McCaul added, didn’t pay taxes on his Dominican Republic villa for 17 years.

“Failure to pay taxes for 17 years. What is that?” McCaul asked. He noted that former Republican James Traficant, who was expelled after a felony conviction, didn’t pay taxes for just two years.

Rangel argued, “City College (of New York) came to me to use my name. I was not trying to criminally hide anything from the IRS and Congress.”

He said he didn’t know the landlord of his New York apartment building placed him on a special handling list, when Rangel set up a campaign office in a subsidized unit designated for residential use.

Before Chisam commenced his remarks, Representative Jo Bonner, Republican -Alabama, told committee colleagues that Rangel needed only to “look in the mirror to know who to blame” for his predicament.

Chisam said Rangel “brought discredit” upon the House and that his actions “served to undermine public confidence in this institution.”

The committee recess for a floor vote and planned to reconvene later Thursday to continue discussion and hold a closed session to discuss Chisam’s recommendation.

Rangel also brought in Representative John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat, to give a testimonial for the congressman to the panel. Lewis called his colleague “a good and decent man” and said he had worked tirelessly to advance civil rights.

With AP

They always cry when they get caught!