only the 23rd time.

Moments after the vote, Mr. Rangel rose from his seat, walked to the well of the House, between the members and the speaker’s podium, where he stood alone as the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, seeming at times uncomfortable, read the one-paragraph resolution censuring him for 11 violations of Congressional ethics rules. Mr. Rangel indignantly denied using his office to benefit donors or enrich... [more]

Moments after the vote, Mr. Rangel rose from his seat, walked to the well of the House, between the members and the speaker’s podium, where he stood alone as the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, seeming at times uncomfortable, read the one-paragraph resolution censuring him for 11 violations of Congressional ethics rules. Mr. Rangel indignantly denied using his office to benefit donors or enrich himself, acknowledging only that he and members of his staff had made inadvertent book keeping errors. But under heavy pressure he gave up his cherished chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee. After dragging out the ethics investigation for two years with aggressive legal challenges, Mr. Rangel walked out of a public hearing on the matter last week, saying that he no longer could afford a lawyer. The ethics committee brushed aside his objections— saying that he had been advised to set up a defense fund to pay his legal fees. The panel ultimately found him guilty of 11 of 13 charges. Even Donald Trump, who had been solicited by Mr. Rangel for a donation and had been scheduled to testify at his ethics trial, said Mr. Rangel was fortunate that he was not facing a punishment more serious than censure. “It’s too bad what’s happened to him, but in certain ways he’s very lucky,” Mr. Trump said on the program “Fox and Friends.” “If it happened to you, you or you, it’s called jail time.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/nyregion/03rangel.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp [less]