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发帖数: 29846 | 1 WASHINGTON—Rep. Charles Rangel is pleading for mercy after the House ethics
committee earlier this week found him guilty of 11 violations of House
rules. The panel is meeting at noon Thursday to decide on a punishment.
"There can be no excuse for my acts of omission. I've failed in carrying out
my responsibilities. I made numerous mistakes,'' Mr. Rangel said in remarks
prepared for delivery at Thursday's hearing before the House Committee on
Standards of Official Conduct.
"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,'' Mr. Rangel said in the closing words of the prepared statement.
The legendary Harlem lawmaker has fought the accusations of misconduct since
they first surfaced more than two years ago. When his disciplinary hearing
began Monday before fellow lawmakers, he walked out in protest that they
hadn't granted him a delay for him to raise money to hire new lawyers.
Mr. Rangel was found to have misused congressional staff and supplies,
solicited donations for a college center named in his honor from business
leaders with issues before his committee, failed to report assets, failed to
pay taxes on some income and misused a rent-stabilized apartment as a
campaign office.
The senior Democratic lawmaker has apologized but noted even his accusers
say the actions weren't corrupt, but sloppy and wrong.
The most likely punishment for Mr. Rangel is a reprimand or a censure, both
of which require approval by the full House.
He isn't expected to face the most severe punishment, expulsion from
Congress, because that is a measure typically reserved for those whose
conduct is not just unethical but also criminal.
Mr. Rangel has represented Harlem for four decades. The ethics problems
forced him to give up his chairmanship of the powerful tax-writing Ways &
Means Committee in March. |
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