Charles Rangel, the Harlem Democrat and powerful chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee is back in the news again. A House ethics committee said on Thursday that Rangel broke the rules when he accepted corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008.
According to the New York Times, while the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct did not issue any findings on Rangel’s misleading financial report in 2007, it did admonish him for accepting trips to the Caribbean to attend business seminars that had been underwritten by corporations like Pfizer, Verizon and AT&T. The Committee said that, even though it had no proof that Rangel knew of the sponsorships, it did hold him accountable as two of his staff did know.
Much more seriously, the Committee continues to look into Rangel’s fund-raising and his grossly misleading financial disclosure report in 2007 where he failed to report at least 500,000 in assets.
It is left to be seen what, if anything, will come out of these more serious inquiries from an Administration that pledged greater transparency and accountability.
