WASHINGTON — One of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top lieutenants demanded yesterday that Rep. Charles Rangel quickly settle the swirling ethics charges against him rather than face a trial tomorrow that could embarrass Democratic candidates across the country — but the disgraced pol isn’t going without a fight.
“I think it’s best that he settle,” Rep. George Miller, an influential California Democrat who helped engineer Pelosi’s rise to power, told The Post.
“Because I just said so, that’s why. That’s my feeling,” he added.
Amid mounting pressure on Rangel, Miller’s blunt statement is the most direct message from any member of Pelosi’s inner circle, and comes just a day after Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) — another member of her leadership team — met with Rangel to talk about the charges he’s facing.
Van Hollen heads the campaign arm charged with getting enough House Democrats re-elected to keep their majority — a task that grows harder as the Rangel affair draws voters’ focus to scandal instead of the party’s own agenda.
For any plea bargain to be accepted by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, which is bringing charges against the 80-year-old Rangel, he would have to swallow a bitter pill — admitting to multiple, substantial ethics violations, sources said.
Rangel confirmed yesterday that his high-priced team of lawyers is in talks with the committee’s legal staff. “They are talking,” Rangel told ABC News. “I hope people are doing what is in the best interest of justice, equity and fairness.”
“I want what’s the fair and right thing to do, and I have confidence in my lawyers and the lawyers of the Ethics Committee,” Rangel said.
“It’s lawyer to lawyer,” a Rangel aide confirmed.
The chairwoman of the Ethics Committee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), said that in past plea bargains, the panel’s members have always accepted the recommendations of their lawyers.
But even amid the flurry of talks, there were no indications that Rangel, a Korean War veteran, was ready to surrender.
“I think he’s going to go through the [trial] process,” one Democratic lawmaker, who is close to Rangel and has held private conversations with him about it, told The Post. “We’re all entitled to our defense.”
But, the lawmaker added, “I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.”
Such negotiations are common during the culmination of an investigation, and often intensify as the deadline approaches.
Rangel also has been spotted talking this week with Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), the No. 3 House Democrat and a fellow member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is pushing for Rangel to get a fair process.
Even with a deal, the ethics panel would still have to make public the charges against Rangel along with a report on its investigation, which could contain embarrassing revelations. He’s been probed for his corporate solicitations on behalf a center named after him at CCNY; having four rent-controlled apartments; failure to report $60,000 of income on required financial-disclosure reports; and skirting of income taxes on his villa in the Dominican Republic.
But the exact sanctions with which Rangel might get slapped would be on the table in talks.
“I think he ought to have a chance to defend himself,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY). “I stand for that very strongly.”
“I think everybody would like to have it go away in the sense that this is not a pleasant process,” said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “It is, however, an important process.”
Asked directly if he thinks Rangel should resign his seat, Hoyer replied: “Mr. Rangel has to do what Mr. Rangel believes is appropriate and proper.”
Meanwhile, House Republican leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the Rangel matter made clear Democrats have not lived up to their promises to run a clean Congress. “This is a sad day when the US House of Representatives has to sit in trial of one of its own members. And it’s one of the biggest broken promises from Speaker Pelosi and her team, who promised to drain the swamp,” Boehner said.