Another Day another Democrat

[Newt]

Charlie Rangel Found Guilty On 11 of 13 Ethics Violations


A House ethics committee subpanel today found Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel guilty of 11 of the 13 charges of ethics violations against him.

The panel, composed of four Democrats and four Republicans, emerged after private deliberation to announce their findings.

"This has been a difficult assignment," committee chair Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said. "We have tried to act with fairness, led only by the facts and the law, and I believe we have accomplished that mission."

The subpanel will now submit its findings to the full ethics committee, which will schedule a public hearing to determine the appropriate sanctions to take against the longtime New York representative. Whatever action they decide on during the sanctions hearing will then go to the full House of Representatives. The committee could go so far as to recommend expelling Rangel, but that would be unlikely. Other possible sanctions include a House vote deploring Rangel's conduct, a fine or a denial of privileges.

The only other investigation of this scale was James Traficant's, and he was eventually booted from his lofty position in Congress.

Unsurprisingly, Rangel claims he wasn't treated fairly. Apparently the fact that the panel was four Republicans and four Democrats is irrelevant -- they were being mean to him or something. He also cites a lack of legal counsel as an issue.

'A Criminal Organization Masquerading as a Political Party'


Disgraced ex-UN official’s death ‘conveniently timed’


The death by barbell of disgraced UN official John Ashe could become a bigger obsession for conspiracy theorists than Vince Foster’s 1993 suicide.

Ashe — who was facing trial for tax fraud — died Wednesday afternoon in his house in Westchester County. The UN said he’d had a heart attack. But the local Dobbs Ferry police said Thursday that his throat had been crushed, presumably by a barbell he dropped while pumping iron.

Ashe was due in court Monday with his Chinese businessman co-defendant Ng Lap Seng, who is charged with smuggling $4.5 million into the US since 2013 and lying that it was to buy art and casino chips.

Ng was identified in a 1998 Senate report as the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars illegally funneled through an Arkansas restaurant owner, Charlie Trie, to the Democratic National Committee during the Clinton administration. (Ng was not charged with any crime.)

Ng and Trie had visited the White House several times for Democratic fund-raising events and were photographed with then-President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton.

One source told me, “During the trial, the prosecutors would have linked Ashe to the Clinton bagman Ng. It would have been very embarrassing. His death was conveniently timed.”

Ashe’s lawyer Jeremy Schneider told me he is sure Ashe’s death was an accident. “There is not one iota of evidence that it was homicide. This is nothing at all like Vince Foster.”

Police in Dobbs Ferry village are keeping the investigation open pending an autopsy by the Westchester medical examiner.