Rep. Charles Rangel is heading into a Nov. 15 ethics trial with no lawyers. Rangel in legal, financial disarray

Rep. Charles Rangel is heading into a Nov. 15 ethics trial with no lawyers, little money and a risky strategy that may turn his trial into a political showdown, rather than a legal face-off, according to sources close to the New York Democrat.

It’s not even clear if the ethics trial will start on time. Rangel has asked for a delay in the proceedings, but the ethics committee — with members off running their own reelection campaigns — has not publicly ruled on the request.


One source close to the case said it “could take months” for a new legal team to “pick up the threads of the case,” although there is no indication that the ethics panel would agree to a lengthy delay in the proceedings. Rangel parted ways with his law firm earlier this month.

Another huge question for Rangel and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who faces a Nov. 29 ethics trial as well, is the impact of a potential GOP victory on Election Day.

If Republicans take the House, as is widely predicted, the defeat may embolden Democrats, who could be less fearful of the political fallout from the ethics controversies since they would have already lost their majority, several House aides suggested.

“It’s very likely, if Democrats lose the House, that the [ethics committee] will be less irritated and take a different tack,” said one Democratic insider. “They may be more unwilling to punish [Rangel and Waters].”

Because of the highly secretive congressional ethics process, nobody directly involved in the trials would speak on the record.

Yet the spectacle of Rangel defending himself before an eight-member “adjudicatory subcommittee” still rattles some Democrats.

“I don’t see what [Rangel] has to gain by stringing this along or [what] having it out with the [ethics] committee gains him,” said a top Democratic leadership staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I don’t see the point if he has won his reelection.”

Rangel, who was first elected to the House in 1970, parted ways earlier this month with the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder, which has been representing him during the two-year ethics probe, leaving him without representation. That split was first reported by POLITICO on Oct. 15. A source familiar with the situation said Rangel and the firm clashed over legal fees.

Sources close to Zuckerman Spaeder, though, adamantly denied the split had anything to do with money. Rangel has paid Zuckerman Spaeder more than $1.6 million during the two-year ethics case.

Rangel “sees this as a political, not a legal, fight at this point,” said a source close to the case, signaling the 80-year-old Korean War vet may present his own defense before the ethics committee.

Rangel’s office has declined to discuss the case or his decision to cut his ties to Zuckerman Spaeder.

Rangel is also hurting financially.

He has far less access to campaign cash then he did in the past when he was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which may have influenced his decision to terminate the relationship with his legal team.

Rangel reported only $184,000 in cash on hand in his campaign account as of Oct. 13, according to his latest report with the Federal Election Commission. Rangel raised an additional $22,500 during the past week, yet he lacks the hundreds of thousands of dollars likely need to retain a top-flight law firm at this late point in the case.

Rangel recently has asked members of the House Democratic leadership to help him raise money, according to several sources, only to be rebuffed. Top Democrats, like Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, were too busy trying to save their endangered majority or believed it would be politically dangerous to raise money for a Democrat embroiled in a corruption investigation.

Rangel, though, believes his victory in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary, and his almost certain reelection next week, have reinforced his own political standing so much that he can choose to aggressively take on the ethics committee, no matter what his Democratic colleagues think.

“All I am saying is that any political threat to me is nonexistent,” Rangel said during an interview with BET earlier this month. “Actually, the ball is in their court as they struggle to figure out what the hell they’re going to do with Charlie Rangel.”

Rangel faces allegations that he improperly solicited millions of dollars from corporate officials and lobbyists for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at The City College of New York; failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of income and assets on financial disclosure forms; maintained multiple rent-stabilized apartments in a luxury Harlem apartment building; and failed to pay income taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic.

Throughout the lengthy scandal, Rangel has repeatedly said he is a victim of a concerted effort to destroy him by Republicans, the press, GOP operatives and even, at times, the ethics committee.

For instance, Rangel has complained that the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog that investigated his personal finances, engaged in widespread surveillance of his activities, even trailing him back home to Harlem.

“They followed me on vacation. They followed me when I was doing business. They’re at the airport. They’re outside where I live. It is kind of rough,” Rangel said of the NLPC during an extraordinary Aug. 10 speech on the House floor.

Rangel also has gone after the media, especially The New York Times, for its coverage of the scandal. Rangel and his aides complain the media has “overlooked facts” and provided a one-sided version of events.

Rangel, though, has saved his most bitter criticism for Republicans, especially those on the ethics committee, suggesting they deliberately blocked him from reaching a settlement with the panel that would have avoided a trial in order to score political points.

When the charges against him were publicly released in late July, Rangel said, “Sixty years ago, I survived a Chinese attack in North Korea, and, as a result, I haven’t had a bad day since. But today, I have to reassess that statement.”