Pelosi gives Rangel some breathing room

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't consider removing Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel from his powerful post before the ethics panel wraps up a wide-ranging investigation of the New York Democrat.

Some fellow Democrats would like Rangel to step aside as chairman in the wake of the ethics ruling. But the speaker continues to stand by Rangel after the House ethics committee slapped him on the wrist for violating House rules by accepting trips to the Caribbean that were sponsored, in part, by corporations.

It is a public admonishment," Pelosi said in a taped interview airing Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "It said he did not knowingly violate House rules. So that gives him some comfort."

Pelosi said she wants to wait until the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, informally known as the ethics committee, completes its work before she will make any decisions about whether Rangel should retain his chairmanship on the powerful tax-writing committee.

"What Mr. Rangel has been admonished for is not good," Pelosi said, according to an advance transcript of her remarks. "It was a violation of the rules of the House."

But she said, his actions were not "something that jeopardized our country in any way."