Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) should be censured by the House of Representatives and pay back taxes for financial and fundraising misconduct, the House ethics committee recommended late Thursday.
The House of Representatives will likely consider the motion to censure the 20-term congressman after Thanksgiving, the Associated Press reported.
A bipartisan panel debated how Rangel should be punished for several hours on Thursday. The vote to recommend censure for Rangel was 9-1.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would give an oral rebuke to Rangel before his colleagues if the House votes to accept the committee’s recommendations.
[TPM SLIDESHOW: Not A Care In The World? Charlie Rangel’s Birthday Celebration]
Rangel made an emotional appeal to the committee earlier in the day, and didn’t have much to say to reporters following the hearing. He later issued a statement of apology.
The ethics panel had already decided that Rangel was guilty of 11 ethics violations, a result Rangel said was unfair. He said it was the committee’s fault that he did not have a lawyer and walked out of the hearing, but the panel decided to go ahead.
The 11 charges against Rangel stemmed from four allegations: that Rangel used Congressional resources to raise money for an educational center bearing his name; did not report taxable income on a Dominican Republic rental villa; filed financial disclosure forms with inaccuracies; and set up a campaign office in a rent-controlled apartment in Harlem.
There was not a set precedent for House members found guilty of similar ethics violations, but the chief counsel of the ethics panel had recommended censure.
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
Facebook Conversations
Questions about commenting with non-Facebook accounts like Yahoo, or other concerns? Click here to read the TPM Commenting FAQ.