TPMMuckraker

Rangel Uses Official Letterhead to Solicit Donations for “Monument to Me”

Kate Klonick July 16, 2008, 11:58 AM

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) hasn’t been having the best week. The House Ways and Means Committee Chairman relinquished his rent-controlled campaign office yesterday, after intense scrutiny in the wake of a New York Times article that exposed his holding of four rent-controlled apartments. And today, the congressman is facing the possibility of a House ethics probe after a Washington Post piece published yesterday, revealed he’s been soliciting donations from corporations with business interests in front of his committee for an academic center that bears his name.

Known to Republican critics as the “Monument to Me,” the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York, caused controversy when Rangel gave it a $1.9 million earmark last year to start it.

Now, in an effort to raise more cash for the center, Rangel has been writing fundraising letters on his official House stationary to business leaders like Donald Trump and Hank Greenberg, former head of AIG, an current CEO of C.V. Starr & Co. If accurate, Rangel’s fundraising letters violate a House rule that specifically bans the endorsement implied by the use of congressional stationary.

Rangel has raised $12 million for the project according to college officials interviewed by the Post. And not all of that has come from private donors:

The congressman has corralled more federal money as well, securing two Department of Housing and Urban Development grants totaling $690,500 to help renovate the college-owned Harlem brownstone that will house the center, according to HUD and school officials.

In response to Rangel’s private fundraising, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the House minority leader have separately requested a probe from the House ethics committee. According to Melanie Sloane, executive director for CREW, Rangel’s actions are obviously unethical: