By Martin Vaughan Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Critics of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are questioning her handling of a House inquiry into whether House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., violated ethics rules.
Stung by new allegations of unethical behavior by Rangel, Pelosi last week issued a statement saying that an investigation by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct would be wrapped up by Jan. 3.
"I have been assured the report will be completed by the end of this session of Congress, which concludes on January 3, 2009. I look forward to reviewing the report at that time," she said Nov. 26.
Stop right there, critics say. The speaker doesn't have the power to direct the work of the ethics panel, which is supposed to operate independently and free of political interference. House rules prohibit ethics committee members and staff from discussing ongoing investigations outside the committee.
"The speaker's office seems to be dictating the schedule to the committee. That to me would be highly unusual," one former House ethics panel staffer, who did not want to be identified by name, told Dow Jones Newswires.
Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said Wednesday the speaker's statement was not meant as a strict deadline. "If they need more time, then they will need more time," Daly said. "She's not monitoring or interfering, it's up to the committee how they do it."
The former committee staffer said that ethics complaints that were not disposed of by the end of a Congress would normally carry over into the next Congress.
Rangel himself requested that the ethics panel look into three separate allegations of misconduct, revealed in newspaper reports. They concern a failure of Rangel to report and pay taxes on income from a Dominican Republic vacation property, Rangel's use of four rent-controlled units in a Harlem apartment building, and his use of House stationery to raise funds for the Charles B. Rangel Center of New York's City College.
Last week, a report by the New York Times charged that Rangel had helped bury a Senate proposal that would have raised taxes on a businessman who had pledged a $1 million donation to the City College center.
House Republicans charge that Pelosi's imposition of a timeframe could hamper the committee from being able to fully investigate the new revelations in the Times article.
"Coming so close on the heels of new and serious allegations against Rep. Rangel, creating a public expectation that the Ethics Committee would soon conclude its inquiry could be viewed as an attempt to fend off growing - and legitimate - demands that Rep. Rangel step aside as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means," Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, wrote in a Tuesday letter to Pelosi.
Meanwhile, a lobbyist named in the Times article wrote Pelosi and Ways and Means Committee members this week to dispute the paper's account.
The Times piece described a Feb. 12, 2007, meeting at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City. It said Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) Chief Executive Eugene Isenberg, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and Rangel discussed Isenberg's financial support for the City College center.
According to the Times, Rangel and Isenberg then moved across the room where they discussed with Kenneth J. Kies, a lobbyist for Nabors, Rangel's opposition to a Senate proposal that would raise taxes on Nabors.
But Kies says that isn't what happened. "The central theme of the story is wrong," he told Dow Jones.
Kies said Isenberg did not have breakfast with Rangel and Morgenthau that morning to discuss the school. Instead, Kies and Isenberg had been alerted that Rangel would be at the hotel, and came in hopes of speaking with him, but not about City College.
"Morgenthau had said, 'I'm having breakfast with Rangel, when I get done, I'll bring Rangel by your table to visit with you for a couple minutes,'" Kies said.
In a letter published by the Times Wednesday, Rangel said, "The article's assertion that I 'defended' the loophole in order to benefit Nabors Industries is patently false."
In a lengthy response published at the same time, the Times stood by its account of the Feb. 12, 2007, meetings. "Mr. Isenberg said the meeting with Mr. Rangel and the lobbyist occurred immediately after the two of them had discussed the City College project over breakfast at the Carlyle with the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, a longtime supporter of the school," the paper wrote.
- By Martin Vaughan, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9244; martin.vaughan@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 04, 2008 13:21 ET (18:21 GMT)

Publié le 04 Décembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones