WASHINGTON — A House ethics committee is alleging that former Ways and Means Committee chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has violated ethical rules.
In a statement released this afternoon, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct said its investigative subcommittee was transmitting a statement of Rangel’s “alleged violation” to the chair and ranking Republican. The committee’s adjudicatory subcommittee is expected to hold a public organizational meeting next Thursday to discuss the matter.
Rangel stepped down from his post, leaving the powerful tax-writing committee in March after the ethics committee admonished him for taking corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008 for conferences, in violation of congressional gift rules. He also had been dogged for months by a number of other issues, including failures to report on federal tax returns rental income he earned on a villa in the Dominican Republic and the issue of whether he received below-market rental rates on four apartments in New York City.
Rangel had been a strong proponent of a number of municipal bond programs, including qualified zone academy bonds and Build America Bonds.
