CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
– ETHICS
Updated Aug. 25, 2009 – 5:28 p.m.
Rangel’s Wealth Jumps After Disclosure
By Richard Rubin and Alex Knott, CQ Staff
House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel , already beset by a series of ethics investigations, has disclosed more than $500,000 in previously unreported assets.
Among the new items on Rangel’s amended 2007 financial disclosure report were an account at the Congressional Federal Credit Union worth at least $250,000, an investment account with at least $250,000, land in southern New Jersey and stock in PepsiCo and fast food conglomerate Yum! Brands. None of those investments appeared on the original report, which was filled out by hand and filed in May 2008.
According to the original report, Rangel’s net worth was between $516,015 and $1,316,000, while the amended report showed his net worth, as of Dec. 31, 2007, roughly double that amount — at least $1,028,024 and as much as $2,495,000.
Rangel also revised his disclosed investment income from 2007. The original report showed he had received between $6,511 and $17,900, but the new report shows between $45,423 and $134,700. The report also includes eight previously undisclosed financial transactions.
House rules allow lawmakers to exclude their personal residences and report asset values within broad ranges.
Rangel’s office and his lawyers did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment.
The forensic accounting firm he hired, Watkins, Meegan, Drury & Company, declined to comment.
Rangel, D-N.Y., filed the new paperwork Aug. 12, along with his months-late 2008 report. They were released by the House this week. The reports are required annually for members. Lawmakers frequently amend their financial statements, but rarely do they make such drastic changes.
In the past, Rangel and his staff have acknowledged errors and carelessness in completing his financial disclosure forms.
“While over the years, I delegated to my staff the completion of my annual House financial disclosure statements, I had the ultimate responsibility,” Rangel said in a statement in September. “I owed my colleagues and the public adherence to a higher standard of care.”
Numerous Revisions
The new 2007 report contains more than a dozen differences from the original version, including amended amounts in previously disclosed accounts and different amounts of income from those holdings.
In 2008, Rangel emptied several of his smaller investment accounts and concentrated his holdings in a smaller number of funds. His total net worth at the end of 2008 was between $834,013 and $2,010,000.
Rangel is already the subject of two separate investigations by the House ethics committee, and the latest disclosures will only bring more scrutiny to the chairman, whose committee is deeply involved in the debate over changing the health care system.
One ethics subcommittee is examining a variety of matters related to Rangel. He has been accused of violating city rules by maintaining multiple rent-controlled residences in New York; he failed, for two decades, to tell the IRS about income from a rental property in the Dominican Republic; and the Washington Post reported last year that Rangel was using official letterhead to solicit corporate contributions for an earmark-subsidized education center at City College of New York that bears his name.
One disclosure in the reports addresses the issue the other ethics subcommittee is exploring: a three-day conference in November to Sonesta Maho Bay Resort & Casino in St. Maarten. The trip sparked an investigation after a conservative group, the National Legal and Policy Center, claimed Rangel and other lawmakers violated House rules by accepting money for a trip lasting more than two days that was paid for by companies that employ lobbyists.
But Rangel’s new financial disclosure form states that the trip was paid for by New York Carib News Foundation, which is affiliated with a newspaper aimed at New York’s Caribbean immigrant community. Rangel reported taking a similar trip to Antigua and Barbuda paid for by the same organization a year earlier.
Other lawmakers who went on the same trip and have been examined by the ethics committee were Reps. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick , D-Mich; Donald M. Payne , D-N.J.; Bennie Thompson , D-Miss.; and Del. Donna M.C. Christensen , D-V.I.
Earlier this year, the Sunlight Foundation found similar problems with Rangel’s previous disclosure reports. According to the group’s analysis, Rangel failed to report purchases, sales or his ownership of assets at least 28 times since 1978 on his personal financial disclosure forms. Assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 appeared and disappeared with no disclosure of when they were acquired, how long they were held or when they were sold, as House rules require.
Sunlight Foundation senior fellow Bill Allison said Rangel reported Pepsico stock worth between $1,001 and $15,000 was reported in 2001, 2002 and 2003 but was sold in 2004. He said Rangel reported credit union assets between 1985 and 1990, then it disappeared and reappeared in 2001 at a value of between $15,001 and $15,000.
“I understand being sloppy, missing an asset once or twice,” said Allison, “But what this shows is he doesn’t take financial disclosure seriously. How else can you year after year have these inaccuracies? It doesn’t look like there is a lot of care put it into compared to other members.”
Allison added: “It makes people suspicious when all of a sudden you double your wealth. Without knowing how a member accumulated that wealth, people are going to ask questions.”
For Rangel, the trouble could go beyond ethics investigations. Former Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was convicted in 2008 of filing false personal financial disclosures, though the conviction was later thrown out because of prosecutorial misconduct.
Stanley M. Brand, a prominent Democratic ethics lawyer and former House counsel who is not working for Rangel, said voluntarily amending the disclosure could be helpful to Rangel in legal and ethical arenas.
“Generally, amending the forms would show an intent to fully disclose and make amends for any oversight,” Brand said. “It tends to negatize your criminal intent if you’re amending this thing on your own.”
Republicans have called for Rangel to step down as Ways and Means chairman during the investigation, but he has refused, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., has stood behind him.
“How long will Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic Leadership continue to allow Rep. Rangel to serve as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, given the staggering array of serious ethics problems he faces?” asked Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio.
“There is a bipartisan process in place and that is the ethics committee,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said when asked if the Speaker continues to support Rangel in light of the most recent disclosures.
But Rangel has been damaged by the allegations, particularly the tax troubles, which have been embarrassing for the House’s lead tax writer. So far this year, his campaign committee and political action committee have spent more than $800,000 on attorneys, limiting his ability to donate to Democratic causes and candidates.
Bennett Roth and Jonathan Allen contributed to this story.
First posted Aug. 25, 2009 1:02 p.m.
Comments
All of this corruption makes Tom Delay look like a saint in comparison
I do not understand for the life of me how this man is not in jail. What a crook.
Leona Helmsley was right.
Jail???? You forget who is president.......
If he was a Republican he would be in jail. But he is a dim and will get re-elected over and over just like marion berry. dims have zero ethics.
Just how corrupt does someone have to be before New Yorkers will actually vote against them? Is there ANY limit?
C'mon, I think Rangel is corrupt, but he's no more corrupt than any of the rest of these committee chairs. Believe me, I'm not defending him, we need perspective on these things. The corruption of dolling out defense contracts worth BILLIONS to Dick Cheney's KBR/Haliburton is thousands of times more than Rangel's problems. He's my congressperson, I'd like to see him go, but who steps in? Yet another corruptible politician! We need total publicly supported election reform and spending.
Let us not forget that they are all crooks; including the Senator-in-Chief. Both sides of the house are fleecing everybody.
No, Tom Delay does not look like a saint, but I'm so disappointed in Rangel...and also those that would think Delay looks like a saint. A saint he is not!!!! Isis is mostly correct for his say, and why is Bush and his thugs not in jail for thier torture programs, and lying to America about our need to go to war in Iraq. Thats just for starters my friends.
"Believe me, I'm not defending him, we need perspective on these things." I fear, dear Isis, that one may find this perspective though a glass darkly, ...only. Beware. This deception is deep as The Twelfth Division of the TUAT, itself. Very few today will ever understand just how badly harmed we are until it is done.
His constituents need to fire his donkey. Sadly it's unlikely they will do so. This man discredits the House of Representatives.
I say we raise his taxes. A lot. And let's raise the taxes of all the tax cheats Obama exposed during his job filling process. And in the ultimate irony, the man picked for Secretary of the Treasury, by his own admission, either is too stupid to understand turbotax, or is a tax cheat. I don't feel so good about either alternative, do you?
While you were looking at Cheney, Feinstein funneled millions to her husband's businesses., Harry Reid became a millionaire developer, Murtha got rich with defense contracts, and a bevy of other Democrats found riches serving the public.
These politicians are evil-doers. Every one a thief, ever yone corrupt. What can the people do to stop this mess? We vote them out, and the next one in is the same...They never get investigated, or seriously punished--it's like they're royalty... Our founders had the right idea with the tar and feathers...Maybe if 30,000 people descended on the capital and ran a couple of these shysters out "on a rail," then we would have hope for real change.
Crook? To those making the accusation... what is the crime? I'm all for getting rid of people convicted of crimes and also charging them in the first place of course... so it would help greatly if you (YOU MAKING THE CLAIM) would let me know what charges we could bring Rangel up on? Or, are there not crimes but perhaps ethical rules violations, such as Senate rules. If you could let me know... I'd be happy to push for charges. We could all push for charges, very effectively, if we simply knew "what charges?" See? Then we can mount an email and letter and phone campaign. You really don't want the embarrassment of someone on the other end asking, "And what crime? What ethics violation?" Let me know the crime. What exactly are you talking about?
And Phil... I'm not sure if you read in the paper... but Marion Barry did go to jail. Also Jefferson, was charged (the Democrat with the cash in the freezer). So, what the heck are you blathering about? You are making absolutely no sense. And if you ask about jail for Rangel... what charge? Even... heck, name an avenue of investigation you have in mind. Anything?
Allen, You do the same thing Rangel has done and see what charges the IRS will come up with. You would be in prison for many years to say nothing of the loss of your net worth. Pelosi and her "Draining the swamp of corruption"! She is the center of it. Also, what group has made the most money from our newest leader? Anyone from Chicago and I mean anyone.
Can it ever stop?! All the blame stops here say the Democrats when Republicans are caught out, and the Republicans then do a 180 and do the same to the Democrats. It is truly a Merry Go Round for so many public officials; their greedy little eyes are always on the brass ring.
One of the fine benefits of capitalism - we can all be greedy blood suckers. If you have money, you get away with stuff regardless of your political party. If you are poor, you get to see the full extent of the laws.
Democrats deserve more scrutiny when it comes to corruption, because they are hypocrites. They regained their majority in congress largely on accusing republicans on corruption (The Culture of Corruption). Now they themselves been caught of taking bribes. Democrats also accuse of being greedy everyone who doesn't want to share their hard earned dollars with social parasites.
The answer to corruption is not public financing of elections but random selection of citizens to run and serve plus short term limits. A long overdue increase in the number of house members would also better represent the constituents and make gerrymandering districts much harder.
Politicians have and always reek of lies and deceptions, why do the American people put up with them????
Just were is the IRS right now? They should be collecting outstanding taxs and setting fines and filing charges for tax evasion.
Why waste time talking about whether he is crook or not. Simply get to work in his state and remove the crook from office so he no longer can cheat the tax man but also cheat us by our paying Mr Ranel another dime of our tax money we have to pay taxes on and he is able to lie and cheat us as well!!!
Simply removing the crooks from office, isn't good enough! The pensions these "public servants" get is more than the average, honest, hardworking, American taxpayer makes per year even when working many hours of overtime. They need to be held accountable for their criminal actions (if any) and be stripped of their pensions and lifetime healhcare plans when they hoodwink Joe Q. Public!
Stop blaming capitalism -- it's mostly politicians fooling with it that produces what you call "greed" and "blood sucking". Polititians lose when capitalism wins -- let the market decide the winners and losers, not a bunch of corrupt polititians!
I cannot believe Pelosi will not strip this apparent obvious scoundrel and tax cheat of his committee positions. This guy is a complete joke. I also think Pelosi is a disaster for the Democratic Party as Speaker and I hope she is removed from that position.
Pelosi is a coward for not removing this crook from his committee positions.
POST A COMMENT
Oops! The following errors must be addressed: