A panel of Rep. Charlie Rangel’s peers in Congress are continuing the ethics trial against him after a fiery and frustrated Rangel excused himself, arguing he would not represent himself and had not been given enough time to hire counsel.
“My role here is as a respondent and I am not here representing myself. I’ve been a lawyer long enough to know that it is very, very unwise for any person, a lawyer or a judge, to be his own counsel at a proceeding like this,” Rangel said after being asked whether he was making a motion to continue the hearing.
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), one of the judges on the panel of four Democrats and four Republicans, requested that the hearing go to recess so the panel could discuss whether to continue Monday despite Rangel’s claims that he had not been given adequate time to hire counsel.
The panel declined Rangel’s request Monday morning and the proceeding – rare in the annals of the House – went forward without the 20-term congressman’s presence.
Rangel said “50 years of public service has to suffer” because he did not have the money himself to pay for a lawyer, that he did not have enough time to cultivate a legal defense fund, and that free counsel offered to him would be considered a gift and therefore prohibited.
“I object to the proceeding and with all due respect I’m going to have to excuse myself from these proceedings because I have no idea what [the prosecutor] has put together over two years that was given to me last week, and I just hope that the history of this committee turns to fairness and will be judged for what it is,” he said. “I respectfully remove myself from these proceedings.”
Several members of the committee angrily criticized Rangel’s lawyers for leaving the case just weeks before the hearing.
Vermont Democratic Rep. Peter Welch said that no law firm should be “taking the money…and kicking their client by the side of the road.” The committee’s chief counsel, Blake Chisam, then read aloud the 13 charges of alleged financial and fundraising wrongdoing that have been brought against the 80-year-old Democrat from New York’s Harlem district.
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(Source: WCBSTV)
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3 Responses
If by some miracle they throw his sorry bag of bones out of Congress…
All games throw the flea bag out. He has stolen enought over the years and anybody else would have been in jail 20 years ago
“Need time to set up a legal defense fund”?? What a crybaby, Boo Hoo!!! Imagine a white collar criminal giving that argument to a judge. Funny if I remember correctly Bill Clinton also had a legal defense fund. Why can’t politicians pay their own way like everyone else??