Complaint Filed with FEC Alleging Rangel Campaign Cash Irregularities
The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a non-profit watchdog group, has filed a complaint against Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) with the Federal Election Commission, alleging Rangel illegally used nearly $400,000 from his National Leadership PAC to pay the legal team defending him on ethics charges before the House of Representatives.
NLPC filed the complaint Monday and posted it on their website Tuesday.
Rangel was recently convicted of 11 of 13 ethics violations and is facing reprimand or censure by the full House. He retained former Clinton White House Counsel Lanny Davis to defend him. Rangel’s principal campaign committee, Rangel for Congress, paid Davis’ law firm, Onick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, $100,000.
That payment was legal, as a candidate’s principal campaign committee may pay legal expenses under certain circumstances.
However, on January 5, 2009, Rangel’s leadership PAC paid Onick, Herrington & Sutcliffe an additional $100,000 — a payment NLPC maintains is illegal.
A leadership PAC is a particular type of committee used by politicians to, among other things, funnel money to other candidates and to pay certain indirect costs of a candidate’s campaign.
In its complaint, NLPC maintains leadership PACs are specifically barred from paying legal costs for candidates because lobbyists are barred from contributing to legal defense funds.
Also in 2009, Rangel retained new counsel, the firm of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. While in 2009 Rangel’s National Leadership PAC did not make any payments to his new firm, according to NLPC’s complaint it did pay an additional $293,000 in 2010 to the firm. In 2010, Rangel for Congress also made payments to Zuckerman Spaeder totaling some $282,000.
Tom Anderson, director of the government integrity program for NLPC, said Tuesday that the reason he believed Rangel used his National Leadership PAC to pay his legal fees was because Rangel did not want to set up a legal defense fund.
“He was urged on three separate occasions to set one up,” Anderson said. “He refused to do it.”
Anderson said he believes there’s a simple explanation for that as well.
“If you set one up you cannot take money from lobbyists,” he said. “The restrictions on a legal defense fund make it harder to raise money.”
And take money from lobbyists Rangel has.
Rangel’s National Leadership PAC took in well over $500,000 in this last election cycle after his legal troubles began.
There is only one reason, of course, for lobbyists to funnel money to politicians, and in particular to the head of the House Ways and Means Committee (which writes tax law): they’re hoping for favorable treatment.
Wait, it gets worse. I hear Rangel paid a Bourbon Street hooker to put him in a diaper. Worse yet, he had an affair with a colleague’s wife, then begged his parents for money to pay off the husband. What’s wrong with this guy? And why is he still in Congress?
Let me see….how many others were severely punished
for using PAC monies inappropriately?….hmmmm
Charles Rangel you deserve far greater punishment
than anything mentioned. The punishment should cover
*,,,Paying you taxes as every other American does.
*,,,Paying taxes on rental monies you have garnered.
*,,,Using ‘rent controlled’ properties for their
express purpose. Not making money for you!
What about going to jail like we the unwashed rabble would?
One law for everyone else, but a different law for those blessed to be in power. Hubris, indeed. His constituents should be outraged. To their shame, most are not. Except maybe for the fact he got caught.
e
Charlie has lectured and humiliated politicians in the past…now, one more crooked politician bites the dust.
I’ve heard on a couple of shows what Charlie represents…a war hero etc., and we need to take a step back and look at all the good he’s done. Well, if I did the same things (as they would relate to civilian life) no one would call me a hero, I would be in jail. Wrong is wrong and hero or not, Charlie has done wrong for quite a while now. Time to pay the piper and it’s SAD SAD SAD
He’s just an old crook who finally got caught.
Oh, dear lord, NOT Lanny Davis. The guy never shuts the F up. Now he’ll be all over FOX News (that dastardly fascist cable news network) spinning endless drivel to defend this disgusting old man who’s corrupt inclinations finally got him at the end. So sad. Stay tuned, Maxine, you dirty ol’ bird. You’re next. You don’t have that awful George Bush looking the other anymore. No no. You have a whole movement of people who do not run and hide form the Race Card — these are people who actually LIVE the ethos of civic honor, that liberal progressives with huge expensive accounts merely give lip service to.
“Ethics Complaints”
Some of these charges go beyond ethics. They are crimes. Where are the punishments? Where are the prosecutions? Is Congress immune to prosecution?
For example, the Congressman who attacked the young man who asked him a question about his support for the Obama agenda, was he ever arrested and charged with assault?
This kind of behavior will continue until these guys start spending serious jail time. Well, it’ll still continue, but to a much lesser degree.
Mmmmm. U.S. congressmen (and ladies) spending serious jail time. I like the sound of that!
as long as the jail is one of joe arpaio’s concoctions
wearing diapers (oops barney frnak would like it), walking as a chain gang in the middle of an arizona summer, hard manual labor, the list goes on…
The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) may or may not be right about the legality of Rangel’s use of money from his National Leadership PAC. I don’t have the knowledge and expertise in these matters to say. But it is laughable that the NLPC describes itself as “non-partisan,” since no objective person could look at the bios of the NLPC’s co-founders, who are its current chair and president, or more importantly the agenda reflected in what the NLPC goes after and how they go after it and conclude they are other than highly partisan. And that partisanship clearly ain’t in the least left-leaning.
Not sure where you’re getting the claim of non-partisan. The NLPC is a 501(c)3 non-profit, which is a horse of an entirely different color. Partisan is far from a bad thing, if being non-partisan means one turns a blind eye to corruption.
Patrick
Seems like just another lefty throwing out an argumentum ad hominem to draw attention from the issue of Rangel’s criminality.
Ignore it, it will go away.
You have the wrong org. You think its the NPR that they are talking about.You on something?????
They didn’t step back and take a look at all the good Duke Cunningham had done. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. It’s time to root out all the illegalities of all the so called representatives. Charlie and Maxine are only the tip of the iceberg.
If Charlie Rangel were white he would already be crossing the days off the calendar in prison and wondering if lunch would be a baloney or salami sandwich and juice.
Rangel is a perfect example of how our government has figured out how to fleece the American people and do it legally. There is literally no one to vote for who is honest and thinks about the future of this country.
An honest gov’t that thinks about the future of this country would throw out all 12 million illegals, stamp on the DREAM Act, prosecute the banks that wrecked our economy by indulging in Las Vegas style gambling, shut down those same weird gambling rules of options traders and shorters who’ve figured out how to rob your 401k, do away with pork barrel spending and corporate funding of candidates, censor the Congressional Black Congress as a racist organization, censure Mexico for encouraging the racism that lets them get rid of the indigenous people they don’t want there, remove all American troops from foreign soil, end legal immigration from a world that is overpopulated, thereby bringing the problem here, force feminists to fight on the front lines, thereby making Vets Hospitals truly co-ed or risk having their votes count for 2/5, etc.
Man that felt good. I love science fiction.
And while we’re at it, spend zero tax dollars on anything other than defense and a few other absolute necessities until we’re out of debt. Duh.
No loaning our loaned money to countries who hate us.
When is the Government going to hit Rangel with a knockout blow dart and drop him off in Zimbabwe to fend for his own before gaining consciousness? I’m sure Mugabe can find ‘something’ for this disgrace of a carbon based life form.
Honestly, WHAT has this POS done to improve the nation as a whole and not just legislation = kickbacks/empathy bills for his minority, lower classed constituents?
All the while driving around in his tax-subsidized Caddy and tries to steer the questioning to Korea when the heat’s turned up on his post-nuclear family affairs..
I saw the birth certificate….Mugabe and Obama are twins.
James May – My wife and I were watching the 1979 movie, ‘Being There’ recently and I almost choked on my Murphy’s when philanthropist ‘Ben Rand’ comments to ‘Chance the Gardener’ of the ‘frightening possibility of Government legislation forcing citizenry to purchase health insurance’.
Yeah – That’s ‘way’ out there..
- Control is compassion
Sure, Rangel is an arrogant, black racist and a crook, probably, in many ways that have not been mentioned (how many of his close relatives are now millionaires?). But, my biggest question is”WHY?”
Why did the dem committee go after a senior black dem? Member criminality has NEVER been a problem for dems, probably, because it is so common. Why ole charlie, why now? The dems had the votes, they could have punted, using their old “… it doesn’t rise to the level…” chant.
Did Charlie make some blood enemies who are using some common happening to shame him? Did they all believe Joe, that the dems would hold the House?
This could have been buried; it’s what most would have expected the dems to do. Why did it happen?