Democrat Tax Cheat Champion Charlie Rangel is finally getting what has long been coming, a day of reckoning.
Ethics raps put Rangel on trial
WASHINGTON — Rep. Charles Rangel was slapped yesterday with charges of serious ethics violations — and faces a public trial in the House that could end with his expulsion after 40 years in office. The charges are the latest setback for the embattled 80-year-old dean of the state congressional delegation, who grudgingly relinquished his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in March after being admonished by the committee for going on a corporate-paid junket to the Caribbean. The secretive House Ethics Committee didn’t reveal which of the accusations leveled against the Harlem Democrat were included in the formal charges being brought against him.
New York Post columnist Charles Hurt on Above The Law Charlie,
If you’re wondering what’s that burning smell wafting from Harlem, it’s Charlie Rangel’s tail on fire.
And it can only get worse. Much worse. For a House member — a long-serving and powerful former committee chairman, no less — to be charged by a bipartisan panel of the House ethics committee is as rare as it is direly serious. That is because in Congress, both parties go to such extraordinary lengths to conceal the sins of their members. The last time it happened, the accused, Rep. James Traficant of Ohio, was expelled from Congress and went to jail.
Oh sure, I’m glad a corrupt arrogant politician like Rangel is getting what’s coming to him. But that is only one part of the collateral damage that Good Time Charlie will bring to his Democrat colleagues. Chuck Todd, NBC chief Washington correspondent, said on Softball last night that this could be the nail in the coffin for Democrats this election cycle, much like the Mark Foley ethics scandal was the final nail for Republicans in 2006. Let’s hope he’s right. Let’s also hope that San Fran Nan, Speaker of the House, and most powerful person in the world, according to Joe Biden, has to answer for the cesspool she oversees.
Here’s video from February of Nancy defending Charlie Rangel, and her promise to run “the most ethical Congress ever”.