WASHINGTON — New York Rep. Charles B. Rangel’s hopes that his ethics woes would be over within the next few week were dashed today when the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct announced that it is opening a new investigation of the embattled chairman.
The panel officially formed a new investigative subcommittee yesterday to examine whether Rangel and four other House members violated House rules when they took off on what appeared to be corporate-sponsored Caribbean junket.
The Post reported last month that the secretive ethics committee was asking questions of those who attended the trip, apparently establishing the need for a full investigation.
The statement released by the panel says that the investigative subcommittee “will have full jurisdiction to conduct a full and complete inquiry into allegations that have arisen regarding the sponsorship of the travel in 2007 and 2008.”
Rangel told the Post last month that he believed that the wide-ranging investigation into his conduct that began last year would be wrapping up by “early July.”
That probe includes charges that Rangel used congressional stationery to seek donations from companies with business before the committee that he chairs for an educational center named after him; rented multiple rent stabilized apartments in New York that were each intended to be primary households; failing to pay taxes on rental income from his Caribbean vacation home, stored a broken down car in a House garage at taxpayer expense and preserved a tax loophole for an oil drilling company at the same time the company’s executive pledged $1 million to the Rangel Center.
House members are barred from accepting trips longer than two days if corporations that have lobbyists are paying for or organizing any part of the trip.
Peter Flaherty, president of a conservative National Legal and Policy Center, told the Post early this month that he had turned over photos he snapped at the conference stages and setups that showed the logos of large corporations that spend millions on lobbying each year, including Pfizer, Citigroup and Macy’s.
Rangel’s office did not respond to a request for comment.