Representative Charles B. Rangel, in protest, walked out on his House ethics hearing on Capitol Hill on Monday. I guess he can't figure out what "is" means either..!!! Perhaps he should now enroll in night school at the Church of the Tequila Sunrise and become a another sputtering 'Revrunt' like Allforme Sharptoes & Jesse Jackarse..!!!
House Panel Says Facts in Rangel Case Are Undisputed
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: November 15, 2010
In an ominous sign for Representative Charles B. Rangel, the House ethics committee on Monday said the facts presented by a prosecutor accusing Mr. Rangel of violating Congressional rules were not in dispute and that the congressman himself had not refuted the charges.
The committee’s finding came after an unusual public hearing that was abbreviated by the longtime congressman’s dramatic exit from the proceedings. Mr. Rangel, who appeared at the inquiry alone, stunned the packed hearing room by walking out after complaining that he had no lawyer because he could not afford the millions of dollars in legal fees he had racked up during the two-year investigation.
After declaring that “I respectfully withdraw from these proceedings,” Mr. Rangel shook hands with the lawyers for the ethics committee who were preparing to lay out the case against him and strode steadily out of the room. But after meeting privately, committee members resumed the proceedings without Mr. Rangel, a Democrat who has represented Harlem for four decades.
In a rebuke to Mr. Rangel, members noted that he had been advised repeatedly, starting as early as September 2008, that he was well within his rights to set up a defense fund to raise money for his legal expenses. Mr. Rangel and his defense team from the firm Zuckerman Spaeder parted ways several weeks ago.
With Mr. Rangel’s chair empty, the committee’s chief counsel presented what he said was “uncontested evidence” that the congressman’s fund-raising and failure to disclose his assets or pay taxes on a Dominican villa had violated Congressional rules.
The members of the ethics committee spent the rest of Monday meeting behind closed doors to decide whether Mr. Rangel should be found culpable for any or all of the 13 charges against him.
Acting as a kind of prosecutor in the case, the committee’s chief counsel, R. Blake Chisam, said Mr. Rangel had not contested most of the facts in the case even when he had a lawyer defending him.
In a 20-minute summary of the evidence, Mr. Chisam presented letters, e-mails and financial documents to corroborate the charges. And although Mr. Rangel was not present, his booming voice still rung through the hearing room as the committee lawyers played videos of him admitting to several of the charges during an impromptu speech he made on the House floor this summer, pleading for mercy from his colleagues.
“You can’t get so carried away with good intentions that you break the rules,” Mr. Rangel said in one excerpt played during the hearing.
After taking questions from committee members, Mr. Chisam said that the record was so clear that there was no need to call witnesses, because Mr. Rangel had never challenged the essential elements of the case against him.
“The record is the record,” Mr. Chisam said. “The facts are the fact. The time has come for a vote.”
nytimes.com
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