Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., former chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, will face a trial before his congressional colleagues after a House investigative panel found that he violated ethics rules.
The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct announced Thursday that an investigative subcommittee that has been probing charges against the longtime Harlem congressman has transmitted a Statement of Alleged Violation and related motions and replies to the chair and ranking Republican member of the committee. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., will act as chair of an adjudicatory subcommittee that will try Rangel, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, will act as ranking member. There will be an equal number of Democrats and Republicans on the committee. Members who served on the investigative subcommittee will not be on the adjudicatory subcommittee. The trial is expected to begin in September.
I was notified today, two years after I requested an investigation, that the Ethics Committee will refer the allegations reviewed by an Investigations Subcommittee to a subcommittee that will review the facts, Rangel said in a statement. I am pleased that, at long last, sunshine will pierce the cloud of serious allegations that have been raised against me in the media. I will be glad to respond to the allegations at such time as the Ethics Committee makes them public.
While the specific charges have not yet been made public, Rangel has faced a series of allegations in recent years, including revelations that he failed to disclose the rental income he received for a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic and to pay $75,000 in taxes on the vacation property.He later paid the taxes after hiring a forensic accounting firm.
Rangel has also been accused of receiving below-market rent on four apartments that he uses as a home and offices in Harlem. In addition, Rangel has been under investigation for not disclosing all the names of companies that sponsored conferences he was paid to attend in the Caribbean and for using congressional stationery to solicit funds for a City College building named in his honor. He stepped down from his committee chairmanship post in March (see
