Pat Dollard

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Politico:

Rejecting a plea for leniency from Rep. Charles Rangel, the House ethics committee voted to censure the New York Democrat, marking the first time in more than three decades that any lawmaker will face such a public rebuke by his colleagues.

By a vote of 9 to 1, the ethics committee imposed the harsh penalty on Rangel.

Rangel was found guilty on Tuesday on 11 counts, including allegations that he improperly solicited millions of dollars from corporate officials and lobbyists for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at The City College of New York, failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of income and assets on financial disclosure forms, maintained a rent-stabilized unit in a Harlem luxury apartment building for his campaign committee, and failed to pay income taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic.

Under a censure resolution, Rangel will have to tand alone in the well of the House while receiving a verbal rebuke from Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on behalf of her colleagues.

The censure resolution will also be read out under that procedure, a further indignity 80-year-old Democrat.
Before the punishment phase in the Rangel ethics trial began on Thursday, Rangel issued a long, emotional statement imploring his colleagues not to be too harsh. As the ethics committee hearing ended Thursday, Rangel gave another tearful plea.

“Let me apologize to the committee for putting you in this awful position,” Rangel told his 10 colleagues.

He repeatedly emphasized that whatever wrongdoing he had committed was not motivated by personal corruption.

“I don’t know how much longer I have to live,” Rangel said.”I just want you when you decide on the sanctions that you put in that report that Charles Rangel never sought any personal gain.”

Rangel added: “There is no excuse for my behavior, but there was no attempt to go beyond what was given to me as my salary. There was no attempted to enrich myself.”

The censure move against Rangel was a surprising one, considering earlier comments from Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), who helped led the two-year probe into Rangel’s finances.

“The recommendation we had was a reprimand,” Green told reporters back in July. “I’ll let the full [ethics] committee make that decision.”

Green later sought to take back his comments after speaking with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the full ethics committee.

But Blake Chisam, the lead counsel for the ethics panel, read a statement before the committee recommending censure for Rangel – a tougher punishment than many legal experts expected.

“Public office is a public trust,” said Chisam, staff director of the ethics committee. Rangel “violated that trust.”

Rangel was found guilty of allegations that he improperly solicited millions of dollars from corporate officials and lobbyists for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at The City College of New York, failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of income and assets on financial disclosure forms, maintained a rent-stabilized unit in a Harlem luxury apartment building for his campaign committee, and failed to pay income taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, already stated that he would not support a censure resolution against Rangel, saying there was no evidence of personal financial benefit by the New York Democrat.

“The facts of this case do not warrant a censure in my opinion,” Butterfield said during Thursday’s hearing.

Rangel clearly sought sympathy from the members, citing his 40 years of congressional service, his love of the House, and his heroic time in the Korean War.

The 80-year-old Rangel also repeated the claim that he was not allowed counsel during his one-day ethics trial. Rangel and his lead law firm, Zuckerman Spaeder, parted ways in mid-October, and he did not hire another lawyer before Monday’s proceedings.

“How can 40 witnesses, 30,000 pages of transcripts, over 550 exhibits measure against my forty years of service and commitment to this body I love so much? I ask the committee in reviewing the sanctions to take that into serious consideration, as well as the effects this ordeal has had on my wife, family and constituents,” Rangel said in a Thursday morning statement. “…I hope my four decades of service merit a sanction that is in keeping with and no greater than House precedents and also contains a drop of fairness and mercy.”

And Rangel admitted that he may have done something wrong with his financial disclosure reports over the years, but did not go into any specifics. Rangel was found guilty of failing to report nearly $600,000 in income and assets on those forms.

“There can be no excuse for my acts of omission,” Rangel said in his statement. “I’ve failed in carrying out my responsibilities. I made numerous mistakes.”