If Rep. Charles Rangel was looking for support from President Obama, he’d better not get his hopes up.
Obama last night called the ethics charges against Rangel “very troubling” and sharply noted that the embattled Harlem Democrat is “at the end of his career.”
“I think Charlie Rangel served a very long time and served his constituents very well. But these allegations are very troubling,” Obama said on the “CBS Evening News” in his first comments on the Rangel scandal.
“He’s somebody who’s at the end of his career. Eighty years old. I’m sure that what he wants is to be able to end his career with dignity. And my hope is that it happens.”
Earlier, it was revealed that the House ethics panel has recommended only a slap on the wrist for Rangel — a formal reprimand.
Government watchdog groups and other critics ripped the proposed punishment — the weakest in the House’s arsenal — as outrageously lenient given the severity of the allegations.
“The substantial number of violations against Congressman Rangel make a reprimand totally inappropriate. It’s ridiculous,” said Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The charges include failing to pay taxes on the villa he owned in the Dominican Republic; not reporting huge amounts of assets and income on his financial disclosure statements; improperly soliciting funds from entities with business before his committee to finance a “Charles Rangel Center” at CCNY; and receiving a rent-stabilized apartment that he improperly used as a campaign office.
The House ethics committee report showed that Rangel failed to report as much as $1.7 million in personal assets over the past 12 years.
That’s much higher than previous estimates of less than $1 million based on the congressman’s financial disclosure forms for 2002 to 2007.
Meanwhile, nervous Democratic Congress members are beginning to abandon Rangel’s shaky ship.
Two — John Yarmouth (Ky.) and Zack Space (Ohio) — yesterday called on Rangel to resign.
But the head of the investigatory panel that conducted the two-year probe of Rangel revealed that they want to let him off with only a reprimand.
“The recommendation that we have is a reprimand,” Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) told reporters.
A reprimand would have to be approved by the full House ethics committee and then the House itself.
The light admonishment falls short of censure or expulsion from Congress and doesn’t even require an apology.
Hours later, Green apologized, saying that he “screwed up” by divulging the recommended punishment and that he planned to apologize to the chairwoman of the ethics committee.
Green also denied that there was any deal with Rangel that would avert the House trial set to begin next moth.
Rangel denied that a reprimand was in the works, saying, “The statement is untrue. It’s just not so.”
Rangel also dismissed calls for his ouster from other Democrats.
“I don’t think anything of it,” he told The Post. “They didn’t talk to me.”
Additional reporting by Charles
Hurt