WASHINGTON — A combative Rep. Charles Rangel told the House on Tuesday that he’s not resigning despite 13 charges of wrongdoing and demanded the ethics committee not leave him “swinging in the wind.”
Rangel, who is 80, spoke without notes in an extraordinary, often emotional 37-minute speech that defied his lawyers’ advice to keep quiet about his case.
The New York Democrat and 40-year House veteran had a sharp message in dismissing fellow Democrats who, worried about election losses, want him to quit: “If I can’t get my dignity back here, then fire your best shot in getting rid of me through expulsion.”
Expulsion is the harshest penalty that can result from an ethics case. It would be highly unlikely in Rangel’s case because the former chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee is not accused of corruption. The four-member ethics panel that investigated Rangel suggested a reprimand, a statement of wrongdoing voted by the House, but that is only a recommendation to the ethics committee.
Rangel, who said he has lost much sleep during the two-year investigation, was interrupted by applause twice — including when he said: “I am not going away. I am here.”
A few Republicans clapped, but most support came from Democrats.
The Democrat from Harlem acknowledged that he made mistakes, especially in belatedly reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets and income, but he insisted he was not corrupt. And he insisted the committee had overstated the seriousness of his solicitations of businesses and foundations for the Charles Rangel Center at City College of New York.
The Associated Press
