Rangel Admonished By House Ethics Panel Over Trips to Caribbean
The committee determined he violated House gift rules when he accepted the trips to conferences in 2007 and 2008 sponsored by the Carib News Foundation. The foundation received contributions from corporations specifically to fund the conferences, the panel said in a statement.
The committee said yesterday that while it didnt find evidence Rangel was aware of the funding, members of his staff did and “Representative Rangel was responsible for the knowledge and actions of his staff in the performance of their official duties.”
Rangel, 79, will be required to repay the cost of the trips and the release of the panels findings would serve as its admonishment, the committees Democratic chairwomen, Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, and its ranking Republican member, Representative Jo Bonner of Alabama, said in a statement. The required repayment wasnt disclosed.
Rangel, first elected to his seat in 1970, said he disagreed with the findings against him. “Common sense dictates that members of Congress should not be held responsible” for staff errors or wrongdoing “unless theres reason to believe that the member knew or should have known, and theres nothing in record to indicate the latter,” he told reporters last night. He said he is consulting a lawyer.
Staff Firing
He also said a staff member involved in the case has been fired.
The ethics committee said it investigated the trips to the Carib News Foundation Multi-National Business Conferences, which it said were held in Antigua and Barbuda in November 2007 and St. Maarten in November 2008.
The panel has been looking at other issues concerning Rangel, whose committee is one of the most powerful in Congress, with jurisdiction over tax policy, Medicare, Social Security and trade. He has been a central player in the debate on overhauling the U.S. health-care system and spent much of today attending the summit President Barack Obama hosted on the issue.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, through a spokesman last night reiterated past calls for Rangels removal from the helm on the Ways and Means panel. “Given the multitude of serious allegations facing Chairman Rangel, Leader Boehner has called on Speaker Pelosi repeatedly to force him to step aside as chairman,” the spokesman, Michael Steel, said in a statement.
Other Lawmakers
The ethics panel cleared several other lawmakers who also traveled to the conference because it found they didnt knowingly violate gift rules. The lawmakers cleared were Democratic Representatives Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Yvette Clarke of New York, Donald Payne of New Jersey and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan and Delegate Donna Christensen of the Virgin Islands.
Lofgren declined to comment as she entered Rangels office last night with Bonner.
Disclosure Omission
The ethics committee in October voted to consider whether Rangels omission of some financial holdings from his disclosure statements violated any laws or rules.
Rangel two months earlier amended five years of his financial disclosure statements to include more than $500,000 in investments he had previously omitted. The committee also is investigating whether Rangel preserved a tax loophole for oil driller Nabors Industries Ltd. after its chief executive pledged $1 million to the Charles Rangel Center, a school of public service at the City College of New York.
Other issues before the committee included whether Rangel failed to disclose income from a rental villa in the Dominican Republic, misused four rent-controlled apartments in Manhattan and inappropriately used congressional stationery to contact potential Rangel center donors.
On a separate matter, the Associated Press reported that the ethics panel ended an investigation of five House Appropriations Committee members, finding that they didnt violate chamber rules. The lawmakers were investigated over campaign contributions they received from companies to which they had steered government funds, the wire service said, saying it had obtained a copy of the report.
One of the five is the late John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who died Feb. 9. The others are Democrats Norman Dicks of Washington, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Peter Visclosky of Indiana, and Republican Bill Young of Florida, AP said.