Government Watchdog Group Wants New Allegations Included In Ethics Probe Of Rep. Charles Rangel

December 3, 2008 3:47 p.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - A watchdog group, Common Cause, has called for the ethics investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) to include new allegations that he had helped preserve a tax shelter for an oil-drilling company, whose chief executive at the time was pledging $1 million to a school named after him.

Common Cause on Tuesday urged the House Ethics Committee to expand its probe of Rangel, who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means panel.

A New York Times article last week said the 78-year-old lawmaker last year "fought to protect" four U.S. corporations that had opened offshore offices in order to reduce federal tax payments. Rangel allegedly helped keep the tax loophole while the CEO of one of the companies, Nabors Industries, was pledging $1 million to the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at City College of New York.

Nabors CEO Eugene Isenberg was quoted by the Times as saying, "There was no quid pro quo."

Rangel also responded the next day after the story was published, saying the allegation was "patently false" and that the report "reflect[s] willful blindness to the history of that legislation and a fundamental ignorance of the legislative process that produced it."

In a letter to the House Ethics panel, Common Cause president Bob Edgar said, "One of the most important goals for Congress is to restore trust in the markets rattled by the meltdown of the housing and credit industries. The questions raised in news reports recently about possible inappropriate relationships between Representative Rangel and the private institutions affected by his decisions could undermine the credibility of Congress' efforts to deal with our deep economic problems."

The House Ethics Committee began its investigation of Rangel on Sept. 24. The probe covers a number of allegations: that he had inappropriately solicited donations for the school named after him from businesses and foundations using his congressional letterhead; his use of four-rent controlled apartments, and one of these as a campaign office, in violation of city and state regulations; his use of the Congressional parking garage to store his car, a 1972 Mercedes Benz with an expired license plate.

The congressman is also accused of failing to include in his tax returns more than $75,000 in income from a villa at the Punta Cana Yacht Club in the Dominican Republic.

He has issued six checks worth $10,800 in total to the Internal Revenue Service and the state of New York to pay back taxes from his Dominican Republic villa. He has also hired a forensic accountant after admitting to discovering more inaccuracies in his tax returns from as far back as decades ago.

The Times had called for his resignation as Ways and Means chair on Sept. 14, six weeks after Republicans failed to pass a resolution publicly censuring Rangel because he had "dishonored himself and brought discredit to the House."