Multiple ethics violations charges for Charles Rangel

New York Rep. Charles Rangel, the former Ways and Means chairman, was charged on Thursday with multiple ethics violations by a House investigative committee.

The Democrat has been in the House for 40 years and is fourth in House seniority and the investigation will be a House trial with an eight-member panel of Republicans and Democrats that will decide whether the accusations are true or false. Rangel led the tax-writing Ways and Means panel until March last year and stepped away after being criticized that the trips to two Caribbean conferences were paid from corporate money. The investigation has focused on some points: whether Rangel used official stationery for raising money for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York; whether he proposed to the Ways and Means Committee legislation that would favor donors to the Rangel Center at the same time when he solicited donations; whether he provided a tax shelter for Nabors Industries, whose chief executive donated money to the center; whether he used four rented apartment units in New York City when the rent stabilization program applies to the primary residence; whether he publicly reported information regarding the financing and rental of his ownership interest in the Punta Cana Yacht Club in Punta Cana from the Dominican Republic and whether he failed to report intentionally assets valued hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Rangel declared that after a two year internal investigation he is happy that the matter will now be in public view and that this gives him the opportunity to respond to his friends and constituents that have been by his side in the last 40 years.