From the Daily News:The top lawyer on the House panel weighing ethics charges against embattled Harlem Rep. Charlie Rangel said Monday he found "no evidence of corruption."
"Do I believe that based on the record that Congressman Rangel took steps to benefit himself based on his position in Congress? No," head counsel Blake Chisam said.
"I believe that the congressman, quite frankly, was overzealous in many of the things he did. And sloppy in his personal finances."
Chisam's remarks were good news for Rangel, who has been hit with 13 ethics charges.
But the raspy-voiced Democrat wasn't in the chamber to hear Chisam - he stormed out just as the hearing was getting underway and his staffers said he would not return.
Despite having had months to prepare, Rangel showed up without a lawyer and claimed he was too broke to hire one.
Rangel said he paid some $2 million to Washington law firm of Zuckerman Spaeder before they parted company last month - and needed time to raise another $1 million to hire new lawyers for this hearing.
18 comments:
The story is that his lawyers abruptly quit late last month when he didn't have an additional 1 million to cough up in advance of the trial.
He had already paid them 2 million and he's all tapped out due to the legal bills and an expensive primary.
If the prosecuter himself proclaims there's no evidence of corruption, one wonders why they put this 80 year old through 2 years of investigations and bankrupted him through millions in legal bills.
What is the point?
Better him than me!
BS. I know lawyers. I know what they charge. For 1 mil he could get 3 excellent and experienced lawyers for an entire year working solely on his case for a year, including expenses. And he is a lawyer, with more experience about the House than anyone else, possibly in the country. But he has no lawyer. Cant afford a lawyer, LOL. This is great
I am a conservative and he is a dream - another face of corruption.
Keep fightin Charlie!!! The joke that keeps on givin.
Yeah, he's crying all the way to the bank thanks to all his shady little deals. I'd have money too if I didn't have to pay taxes.
Ol’ Charlie may be at an impasse with his counsel of record, but are you seriously telling me there isn’t another grand-standing ambulance chaser available who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be on camera for a 20 hour hearing with national exposure?
What is the point?
This is the point.
You don't need to have committed a felony to be guilty of ethics charges.
He's #1 in my death pool...........
re: this is the point;
My Lord, did he have even one gentile giving evidence against him ?
What is that all about ?
Yeah Charlie, what about the millions you get to keep - you already know your done. Charlie is too smart spending more money rather than keeping it for himself or other Pols in the party - for Pelosi - he will resign so that the hearing end and the remaining money in his war chest his..
A disgusting individual. All of a sudden he's poverty stricken. This old goat needs to go down.
Rangel should have been pushed to resign or retire. You can’t gain credibility and trust covering for corruption....
Once he saw trouble, he could have rode off into the sunset.
But his ego wouldn't let him do it.
How long before he cries racism?
Time to pay the fiddler.
The prosecuter said there was no corruption because there wasn't any.
He did not say there were no felonies, he said no corruption.
We spend millions to uncover the boring fact that an old man broke a bunch of administrative regulations.
No wonder we are broke.
They should have offered to let him pay a $100,000 fine to the U.S. treasury a year ago and been done with it.
That would have saved him $1 million and us a lot more.
If his legal bill is $2 million, even before the trial, can you imagine what the taxpayers bill for this is?
Probably something like $5 million or more.
We need good public servants out there
Is al centola from Malba gardens the only good public servant out there
Hey anonymous -- since when is flouting the US tax code an "administrative violation"? Rangel is Exhibit 1 supporting the charge that US politicians are hubris-filled hypocrites and corrupt by definition.
As Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, which is charged with writing the federal tax rules and regulations, he should indeed be held to the HIGHEST standard. That this pig, a supposed tribune of the "underclass and downtrodden" allegedly "forgot" to pay taxes on the income from his DR "villa", on top of the greedy, and yes, corrupt-- exploitation of the rent stabilization laws of NYC, isn't already in prison is an indictment of our entire political system. They even dropped some of the lesser charges, e.g. the free parking that this pig and most of his colleagues expect as an entitlement. Many pols guilty of far lesser ethical breaches have been sent packing. His time is up.
Make him sell one of houses to pay for his own shit. But instead he gets away with dipping into our taxes all the time for his personal gain.
This guy is a scumbag. He's deluded and he's been a criminal for many years.
Next, I'm waiting for the reality TV show deal to be on HBO. Maybe "Charlie's Home Cookin'?"
Come on Kaufman Studios! Clog our streets some more with trailers for days on end!
The tribe has spoken. Time to blow out his torch. It's time for him to go.
Is he dead yet?
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