WASHINGTON — Embattled Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel broke House rules and will get a “public admonishment” from the House Ethics Committee for taking corporate-sponsored junkets to the Caribbean.
In a report to be released today, the panel concludes the Democrat accepted the trips despite House rules that prohibit financing of lawmakers’ trips by corporations.
The lavish junkets were bankrolled by corporations and organized by the Carib News Foundation in 2007 and 2008.
The 2008 conference was in sunny St. Maarten, and the 2007 one was on Antigua and Barbuda.
The panel had investigated five lawmakers, including the powerful Ways and Means Committee chairman, but found only Rangel knew about the corporate backing. The others were expected to be exonerated.
Rangel remains under investigation by the Ethics Committee, which is conducting a wide-ranging probe into whether he failed to pay taxes on rental income from his Dominican villa, as The Post reported; whether he failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets and income, also reported by The Post; and fund-raising he did for a CUNY center named for him.
The committee found that Rangel broke the House’s gift rule by getting reimbursed for the junkets.
The panel also said two Rangel staffers were aware of the corporate funding. Onr of them, identified by Fox News as his former chief of staff, George Dalley, stepped down last year.
The committee said there wasn’t “sufficient evidence” that Rangel himself knew about incriminating memos by his staff.
The committee told Rangel to pay back the cost of the trips.
In a news conference last night, Rangel said he didn’t know about the corporate financing.
“I don’t want to be critical of the committee, but common sense dictates that members of Congress should not be held responsible for what could be the wrongdoing or mistakes or errors of staff unless there’s reason to believe that member knew or should have known, and there is nothing in the record to indicate the latter,” Rangel said.
“The Ethics Committee authorized the trip, and there’s no way in the world there could be any report out I was not authorized by the Ethics Committee to travel.”
The St. Maarten junket, in November 2008, was a three-day multinational business conference. Lobbyists for AT&T, Citigroup and Verizon sponsored the event, where corporate logos were reportedly visible, and lawmakers thanked sponsors in speeches there.
Citigroup, which got federal bailout cash, paid $100,000 for the event, one lobbyist at the gathering told The Post, while Verizon said it paid $35,000.
Under House ethics rules adopted in 2007, lawmakers can’t accept trips longer than a day from any corporation that employs or retains a registered lobbyist.
The trip was organized by a nonprofit foundation despite the corporate bankrollers.
The panel didn’t rule that Rangel should be subject to any sort of sanction, such as a fine or censure.
But the report could imperil his chairmanship and put pressure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who campaigned on a promise to “drain the swamp” of corruption, to remove him.
Asked whether going on the trip was a mistake, Rangel replied: “Hell no. Why would I [regret going] if it was approved by the Ethics Committee?”
He brushed off questions about whether he would relinquish his chairmanship.
Asked whether he knew private funds bankrolled the affair, Rangel replied, “Of course not . . . I had no idea. Hell no.”
Rangel said he met with the ethics panel last month about his other issues under investigation, but he didn’t specify when a report might come out.