Rep. Chuck Rangel in deep ethics shit again ?

Rep. Chuck Rangel in deep ethics shit again ?


Will Ethics Problems Hurt Pelosi and the House Democrats in 2010?



Do House Democrats have a double standard when it comes to ethics? Word broke earlier this week that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to allow Rep. Chuck Rangel to keep his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee despite continuing ethics problems. The latest revelation: he failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets on his financial-disclosure forms over the past several years. According to amended forms recently filed with the House, Rangel failed to disclose at least $800,000 in assets and income since 2002. The latest dustup comes amid an ongoing House ethics investigation into other questionable acts by the New York congressman, including his failure to report income from and pay taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic and his ties to a real-estate developer who leased him four rent-stabilized apartments in New York. The panel is also looking into Rangel’s fundraising and whether he improperly used his office to raise money for a public policy center in his name at the City University of New York.

For his part, Rangel has denied any wrongdoing and tallied it all up to accounting mistakes and simple oversights. But Republicans, no doubt happy to be on the other side of an ethics issue after years of problems with Tom DeLay and others, are demanding Rangel give up his chairmanship and provide proof that he accurately reported his income and assets to the IRS. For now, Pelosi is sticking with Rangel, according to aides who say she won’t ask him to resign his post unless the ethics committee censures him. “Due process,” a House Democratic aide, who declined to be named discussing the situation, tells the Gaggle.



http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/09/03/ethics-pelosi-house-democrats-2010.aspx