WASHINGTON – Shortly after veteran Representative Charles Rangel of New York walked out of his ethics trial in protest, a House panel began closed-door deliberations yesterday on 13 counts of alleged financial and fund-raising misconduct that could bring formal condemnation.
Only recently one of the most powerful members of Congress, Rangel was reduced to pleading in vain for colleagues to give him time to raise money for a lawyer before taking up the charges. The 80-year-old congressman left when they said no, and the rare proceeding – only the second for this type of hearing in two decades – went on without him.
An ethics committee panel of four Democrats and four Republicans was sitting as a jury in the case late yesterday. The official acting as prosecutor said the facts were so clear there was no need to call witnesses, and panel members apparently agreed.
If the panel members decide Rangel violated any House rules, the full committee will hold a hearing on how he should be punished. The most likely sanction would be a House vote deploring his conduct.
Rangel, a 20-term congressman representing New York’s famed Harlem neighbourhood, implored the ethics panel for further delay, saying that “50 years of public service is on the line”. But the panel basically decided that the 2½-year-old case had gone on long enough – and Congress had little time left to deal with it in the lame duck session that commenced yesterday.
