Rangel Through Troubles: Defiant, Funny, Defiant

Rep. Charlie Rangel wasn't always defiant in the face of allegations he violated Congressional ethics rules. He was sometimes funny, too.

"I'd quit tomorrow," Rangel replied on July 11, 2008, the morning The New York Times first reported the Harlem Democrat was simultaneously renting four rent-stabilized apartments at below-market rates.

Before end of the year, Rangel would announce he was amending his tax filings to correct an oversight: 17 years had gone by without him paying income taxes on money he earned from rental property in the Dominican Republic. He was, at the time, head of the Ways and Means Committee, which, ironically, writes the nation's tax laws.

But Rangel's apartment hoarding and tax oversights accounted for only three of the eleven Congressional ethics violations. The rest all stem from his efforts to raise money for a City College institution to be named after him. He used staffers to write the letters. He used official Congressional stationary to send out the solicitations. And he sent them to corporate executives who had business before his committee.

During much of the two-year-long investigation, Rangel blamed the media (often The New York Post in particular) for what he said were mischaracterizations about his conduct, if not, flat-out dishonesty.

"I think it's totally unfair for the New York Post to send investigative reporters to my family's homes and to do that type of thing," Rangel told me in September 2009. "I guess it's all selling papers."

He added, "[T]he person that's evaluating me is the [Ethics] committee and not The New York Post."

After being censured - in a statement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that lasted only 45 seconds -- Rangel spoke from the House floor, admitting to wrongdoing, but again, proclaiming he will be vindicated in history books.

"I know in my heart I am not going to be judged by this Congress. I'm going to be judged by my life, my activities, my contributions to society," he said.

In a brief press conference with reporters immediately afterwards, Range was more direct.

"When history of this has been written, that people would recognize the vote for censure was a very, very very political vote," he said.

Rangel repeated his claim that he had signed a deal with the Ethics Committee agreeing to a reprimand - a milder punishment than a censure, which requires a member stand up and be publicly rebuked. But Rangel said after he signed the deal, it was somehow rejected by the Ethics Committee, which is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. The committee's rejection of a deal agreed to by their own, non-partisan staff was curious in Rangel's opinion.

"I reminded the chairlady [that a] settlement had been reached," Rangel told reporters, "and that a reprimand was recommended, and Charlie Rangel signed it."

How that changed, Rangel wondered aloud briefly, before adding, "I don't know, and I don't care."

Sarcastically, he added, "For them to work for two years [on] what I would have accepted in two days, I guess I somehow have to be thankful for."

The ethics saga for Rangel is, in many ways, a tale that has come full circle. Forty years ago, Rangel won his Congressional seat by defeating the iconic Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who was elected to that body while many of its amenities were still segregated. Powell refused to cooperate with investigators probing a myriad of alleged financial wrongdoing. He also decamped for the sunny beaches of the Bahamas, basically absconding any retail campaign opportunities in his district. 

Cognisant of the parallels between his current problems and those of his predecessor, Rangel vowed not to end up like Powell. 

"His biggest mistake was not coming home and campaigning and I may be making a lot of mistakes but that won't be one of them," Rangel declared at his campaign kick-off event earlier this year. (The event took place, appropriately enough, in the federal office building in Harlem named after Adam Clayton Powell. Rangel's Congressional office is also located there.).

Rangel crushed his five Democratic opponents, garnering nearly fifty percent of the vote. He destroyed his Republican opponent in the general election by an even wider margin.

Before leaving his press conference in Washington after the censure vote, he took one last question from a reporter. Rangel listened, looked puzzled, then asked, "Have you got a license in psychiatry?" 

He then walked away.

Residents in Rangel's district had mixed reactions.

Eric Acosta of Washington Heights said "you gotta pay" if you break the rules. Lisa Lampkins of Harlem said, "What he did was wrong but a lot of people have done worse."

The morning after the censure, the Associated Press ran a story with the following lead; "Charles Rangel has his swagger back, but not his power."

Watch Rangel's initial reaction to news reports in July 2008: