Posted on 07/23/2010 4:13:01 AM PDT by DontTreadOnMe2009
Thank you!
William Jefferson (LA-02) didn’t go anywhere until he was actually charged. The CBC rallied around him and protected him. I can’t see that they would do anything less for Rangel. Rangel won’t go anywhere until or unless he’s criminally charged. That’s my guess.
THE RANGEL SWINDLE
(1) Took a “homestead” tax deduction meant for year-round DC residents - though he legally resides in New York;
(2) Rangel paid no taxes on his luxe property in the Caribbean;
(3) Has four rent-stabilized apartments (one is a campaign office);
(4) Improperly stored his car in a House parking garage;
(5) The NY Times reported oil-drilling businessman Eugene Isenberg made a $1 million pledge toward building The Rangel School for Public Service at City College of New York. Rangel later preserved a controversial offshore tax loophole that saved millions for Isenberg’s company. The Isenberg-Nabors deal is, potentially, far more serious: It reeks of a quid pro quo between Rangel’s official duties and fund-raising for his personal project. The Times reported that Rangel held meetings the same day, at the same hotel, with Isenberg to discuss the CCNY project and then with Nabors’ chief lobbyist on the tax loophole;
(6) Took free trips sponsored by corporate lobbyists;
(7) Used Congressional stationary to raise money for the tax-exempt Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service;
(8) Can Rangel prove where he spent $2 million he received from Congressional allocations, plus another $700,000 from the Dept of HUD, that went to the tax-exempt Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service?
Can any one explain to me why he is not facing criminal actual charges from law enforcement? ... Charlie USED to be head of the House Appropriations Committee. He still has the pull that got him there. If LE, (SS, FBI, Capitol Police, Barney Fife, or the IRS)went after him, they would get no budget bigger than the one they had in 1972.
Ping to post #6, I think you’ll be surprised, too, as Rangel was.
I know I was.
This really raises some interesting problems for Mr. Skittles. A real honest to goodness black is in the dock for cheating and basically stealing from (shock) Government. This particular black is the founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, which represents real honest to goodness black representatives. Now, if you are Mr. Skittles, who is only a halfrican, how can you play this? Bribe the good Congressman to retire and thus make all the uncomfortable chatter go away? Have a Sista Soulja moment to demonstrate your post-racial self? Lay low and have Pelosi take the heat? My bet is a combination of the first and last options. Methinks a Chris Dodd bow out with a nice going away present to him and the CBC is his future. The viral thing the Dems have to avoid at all costs is a Jesse Jackson moment of discovery that Mr. Skittles ain’t one of them. I wonder if Shirley is on board?
And wasn't that a disgrace? I mean, *caught with the hand in the cookie jar*, there is all that cash in the FREEZER, duh, but we hear the same thing as on an episode of COPS, "I ain't done did it," his cronies circle 'round.
At this point, Rangel could be found with that proverbial dead woman or live boy in the bed, as you say, he's not going anywhere, my guess is even criminal charges wouldn't do it. A conviction where he must serve time in the Grey Bar Hotel, he can't attend House sessions, is 'bout what it will take ... sadly, I think they'd manage some way around that.
D.A. of jurisdiction will have to proceed -- NY, his place of residence? DC, where some of the crime took place, the filing of fraudulent disclosure for one? That house in the Bahamas is it? I don't know how this works, when it's so many different locales, but as I said above, these ethics violations, they are an in-house matter, if the membership determines disciplinary action is warranted, someone has to push for a vote, expulsion, censure. The Speaker can remove him from any committee assignments, she does not need the vote of the members to do so.
But in order for criminal charges to be levied, a D.A. has to get into this -- I'm not sure who that would be at this point.
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