After his dramatic walkout from a high stake ethics trial, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) now awaits judgment from the ethics panel that has heard the evidence against him and has ended the public portion of the trial.
The ethics panel, after an unexpected 40-minute private session Monday, rejected Rangel’s request to delay the trial and forged ahead with its business, plowing through piles of evidence about Rangel’s corruption case. The witness chair where Rangel was supposed to sit was empty, a sobering sign of Rangel’s refusal to participate.
Now, the special panel hearing the case decided to accept a motion stating all the evidence presented by ethics committee lawyers on Rangel’s guilt was fact. The panel then retired to deliberate in secret over Rangel’s fate.
It was a fitting end for a wild day, and the only question now is whether Rangel will be found guilty or innocent. Judging upon the way things have gone so far, the chances of Rangel being cleared appear very low.
The Rangel trial, overseen by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who is also the chairwoman of the full ethics committee, began with fireworks.
As soon as he was allowed to speak, Rangel asked for a continuation of his trial, arguing that he had parted ways with his lead defense attorney – the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder – just a month ago and needed more time to prepare his case.
Rangel split with Zuckerman Spaeder last month after paying the firm $1.6 million during the two-year investigation into his personal finances. The New York Democrat said the firm wanted an additional $1 million for the trial, funds that he no longer had available after running through his campaign account. Members of Congress are allowed to use campaign funds to cover legal fees incurred as part of their official duties.
"I am being denied to the right to have a lawyer right now because I don’t have the opportunity to have a legal defense fund set up," Rangel complained to the “adjudicatory subcommittee” hearing the case. "And because I don’t have a million dollars to pay my counsel."
Once a top fundraising draw, Rangel stepped down as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee earlier in the year, damaging his ability to raise money. The long-running ethics scandal has also damaged his reputation with potential donors.
The 80-year-old lawmaker said he was only told two weeks ago by the ethics committee that he could set up a legal-defense fund to cover his attorney fees, and Rangel claimed that he hadn’t had time to so yet.
Rangel was visibly emotional in his opening speech, arguing that due process rights, his lengthy congressional career and even his combat service during the Korean War, justified a delay in the proceedings.
“All I am asking for is fairness,” Rangel told a horde of reporters who trailed him down the hallway after his combative appearance.
Abbe Lowell, a top ethics and white-collar criminal investigation attorney who represented former President Bill Clinton during his 1998 impeachment, was at Monday's session, although he never got a chance to appear on Rangel’s behalf.
Rangel also complained bitterly that the ethics committee was trying to end his trial and sanction him before the end of the 111th Congress.
“Can you tell me under what theory of fairness would dictate that I be denied due process, that I be denied an attorney, because it’s going to be the end of the session?" Rangel said. "How far does this go to a person not having counsel, not having due process, because we don’t have the time?"
"My reputation, 50 years of public service, has to suffer because you have concluded that this matter has to end before this Congress ends," Rangel said.
But after two years wrestling with the Rangel case, Lofgren was having none of it. After a secret, 40-minute debate among the eight panel members, the California Democrat announced it was going forward, with or without Rangel.
Lofgren noted that Rangel "asked for formal advice from the committee [on covering his legal bills] in Sept. 2008, in March of 2009, in October of 2010 and again in November of 2010, and received informal advice on that in August."
Lofgren added: "Each time, the committee responded and provided Mr. Rangel with formal guidance on how he could pay his legal fees in this matter."
She also noted that Rangel could have paid legal bills out of his own pocket.
Lofgren also said that whether Rangel even participated in the hearing was immaterial at this point.
"We recognize that Mr. Rangel does not intend to participate. It is his right not to participate,” Lofgren said.
Rangel has been hit with a 13-count “Statement of Alleged Violation” after a two-year investigation, 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 multiple rent-stabilized apartments in a luxury Harlem apartment building; and failed to pay income taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic.
Ethics committee attorneys later admitted that there was no issue of corruption by Rangel, or any apparent attempt to benefit himself or his family personally through his actions, especially in regards to the Rangel Center and his failure to disclose all his assets.
"I see no evidence of corruption," said Blake Chisam, the top ethics committee lawyer, about Rangel. Chisam's statement was in response to questioning by Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.). Butterfield is serving on the eight-member panel hearing the Rangel case.
"It's hard to answer the question of personal financial benefit," Chisam added. "I think the short answer is probably no. Do I believe that based on the record that Congressman Rangel took steps to benefit himself based on his position in Congress? No. I believe that the congressman, quite frankly, was overzealous in many of the things he did. And sloppy in his personal finances."
The most serious allegations against Rangel surround his fundraising on behalf of the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Policy at City College in New York. Rangel sought as much as $30 million in public and private funds for the center, and he was charged for setting dozens of letters on official letterhead to official donors.
Chisam said that Rangel could have avoided any problems "if he had only followed the rules" laid out for such fundraising in the House ethics manual.
Zuckerman Spaeder, the law firm that represented Rangel until it cut ties with him last month, has also come in for a bad time today.
Butterfield and other members of the bipartisan panel hearing the Rangel case have battered the law firm for its actions, suggesting that they would seek to change House ethics rules so that it doesn't happen again.
The special panel will now make a public announcement on whether it has found Rangel guilty on all or some of the charges. Sanctions against Rangel will be left for the full ethics committee to decide, with the entire House having to vote on any serious punishment.
source POLITICO
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