A House ethics panel has found Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., guilty of breaking 11 ethics rules.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said there was “clear and convincing evidence” on the charges. She just finished reading the votes taken in private of the bipartisan trial committee’s deliberations.
Rangel, a former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, had been charged on 13 counts, including misusing his office to raise money for a public policy center bearing his name and failure to pay taxes on rental income from a Dominican villa. Two charged had been rolled into one, Lofgren said.
“We have tried to act with fairness, led only by the facts and the law,” Lofgren said. “We believe we have accomplished that mission.”
The adjudicatory panel, which served as judges on the Rangel case, will now issue a report to the full ethics committee and then the full House recommending punishment.
In 2002, the last time an ethics trial was held by the House, Democrat James Traficant was found guilty and later expelled.
Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the panel, said today he hopes the “consensus” reached by the committee will usher in a “new era” and restore credibility “to the people’s House.”
