Looks like it’s time for a new lawyer.
Rep. Charles Rangel’s attorney was barred from appealing his client’s congressional censure because he’s not a member of the bar where he filed the court papers.
The Washington, DC, circuit of the US Court of Appeals rejected lawyer Jay Goldberg’s legal maneuver in a Jan. 14 letter because “you are not a member of the bar of this court.”
“It is the policy of the court that all attorneys appearing before it be members of the bar,” wrote clerk Mark J. Langer. “Our instructions do not allow us to accept filings from attorneys who are not members.”
Rangel, who is 83 and has represented Harlem since 1971, was censured by Congress in 2010 after taking rent-stabilized Manhattan apartments and failing to pay taxes on his Dominican Republic hideaway.