Rep Charlie Rangel, who New York voters re-elected with 80% of the vote, begins his trial on violating House ethics rules today.
To defend himself, looks like Charlie violated MORE ethics rules.
To pay his legal bills, he raided a Democrat Leadership PAC to the tune of nearly $400,000.
Rangel tapped his National Leadership PAC for $293,000 to pay his main legal-defense team this year. He took another $100,000 from the PAC in 2009 to pay lawyer Lanny Davis. Two legal experts told The Post such spending is against House rules. “It’s a breach of congressional ethics,” one campaign-finance lawyer said.
Washington, D.C., political lawyer Cleta Mitchell said there is “no authority for a member to use leadership PAC funds as a slush fund to pay for personal or official expenses.” Leadership PACs are typically used by politicians to donate money to other candidates.
Rangel said he never intended to violate the rules in the many charges he is being tried for in his House Ethics trial.
Wonder what he’ll say about this charge? House rules explicitly state that expenses like this may be paid by “funds of his or her principal campaign committee — not the funds of a leadership PAC.”
What’s the biggest outrage? That his voters keep sending this arrogant flouter of rules back to Washington year after year, or that he’s willing to break ethics rules to defend against ethics charges.
Need a poster for term limits? Here he is!
