Charlie Rangel is one lucky congressman: A federal panel is citing him for election-law violations but fining him a mere $23,000 — pocket change that likely won’t even come from his own pocket.
Average New Yorkers should be so lucky.
After all, this wasn’t over some minor technicality. No, the Federal Election Commission found that the Manhattan Democrat for years illegally used a rent-stabilized apartment as a campaign office.
Instead of paying $1,700 or more a month — the going rate in the W. 135th Street building, where he also lives — Rangel’s campaign committee paid a well-below-market $630 rent.
Rangel can’t claim ignorance, either; turns out he not only signed the original lease (which required him to use the unit “for living purposes only”) but renewal leases “and all other renewal forms.”
Which means, said the FEC, that he knowingly accepted what amounted to an illegal in-kind campaign gift from his landlord (who was fined $19,000).
And Rangel kept the deal even as the landlord vigorously moved to evict other tenants for violating rent-control rules.
Given what he got away with, the $23,000 fine isn’t much of a hit. No wonder an aide calls it basically a nuisance fee.
“People settle not because they’re guilty but because they don’t want to go through the arduous process and expense to show they’re not guilty,” she said.
And though his office won’t say for sure, his campaign will most likely pay the tab.
Typical Rangel: Laws don’t apply to him.
Just as they didn’t apply to any of the 11 counts of ethical violations, many first uncovered by The Post, that led the House to censure him.
Even his colleagues, it seems, couldn’t ignore that sleaze: Failing to pay taxes on his villa in the Dominican Republic. Failing to report hundreds of thousands in assets on financial-disclosure forms. Using official letterhead to solicit donations, including from firms with business before Congress, for a school named after him . . .
Rangel has now been sanctioned by the House and the FEC.
That leaves one party yet to be heard from: the voters.