[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13990-13993]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            JUSTICE FOR ALL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Markey of Colorado). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Carter) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. CARTER. Madam Speaker, Nancy Pelosi became the first elected 
female Speaker of the House in the history of the United States. On 
November 16, 2006 she stated, ``This leadership team will create the 
most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.'' She 
still serves as our Speaker and she also sits in the position in line 
to, in case of some horrible disaster, she is actually third in line to 
the Presidency.
  The President of the United States said, ``I campaigned on changing 
Washington and bottom-up politics. I don't want to send a message to 
the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for 
powerful people and one for ordinary folks who are working every day 
and paying their taxes.'' President Barack Obama said this to CNN on 
February 3, 2009. So that was the stage that was set for the Democratic 
administration in this House and for the Democrat administration in the 
White House.
  I've been on the floor of this House now for about 18 or 19 months 
talking about lots of things, about how we have rules for a reason, and 
we believe, as Americans, in the rule of law. It is as sacred as 
anything that there is of a secular nature in this country, that we 
believe that law and fairness is so important to us that we have laws, 
and that each person is treated fairly under those laws. And there are 
no exceptions. And as the President said, we want a world that we live 
in that says everybody in this country is not only created equal but is 
going to be treated equal under the law. And we've had lots of examples 
where that didn't happen, and that's part of the turmoil that has moved 
around this Nation for over 200 years. But the average American citizen 
down deep in his soul, in his heart, he wants that world, she wants 
that world, the American citizen wants the world that says the law 
treats everybody equally and fairly. And when we go to our court 
systems under the rules that we operate under, we expect others to 
follow those rules the same way, and we expect that those who are in a 
position of enforcing those rules are seeing that that conduct is 
policed up when those rules are broken. We expect them to treat 
everybody equally and accordingly.
  We've got a volume of rules for this House of Representatives that's 
about that thick, and it is written in such fine print that you have to 
have reading glasses to read it, even when you're young--and when 
you're my age, you certainly need bifocals and trifocals just to read 
the fine print. But we also have people that have served in this 
Congress for decades and dealt with these rules. And they understand 
them, they know these rules, the Speaker being one of them. And when we 
make a promise to this House that we will have the most honest, open, 
and ethical Congress in the history of the Congress, that kind of 
promise is important to the American people because that's exactly what 
they were looking for from this Democratic administration.
  Many times I stand here all by myself on the floor of the House 
talking about these things, occasionally somebody comes forward and 
joins me. But I think the Members of this House in their souls expect 
that. I think every American citizen expects that. And we are now at a 
point where after I've been talking for 18 or 19 months almost every 
week about the former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. 
Charles Rangel, and the issues that he had, we have finally, finally 
reached a point where the Ethics Committee has moved off high center 
and launched forward in this case. But just so we get an idea of why 
I've been standing up here, why my colleagues come and join me and 
stand up here, let's just go through the timeline that we're dealing 
with and how long it's been going on.
  September 24, 2008: The House Ethics Committee votes to open an 
investigation into soliciting funds for the Charlie Rangel Center for 
Public Service, occupying rent-stabilized apartments, soliciting 
donations on congressional letterhead, and not disclosing or paying 
changes on rental income from a Dominican villa. September 24, 2008.
  November 6-9, 2008: Mr. Rangel leads the Citigroup-funded 
congressional junket to the Caribbean.
  December 9, 2008: The Ethics Committee expands the investigation to 
include Rangel's efforts to preserve tax breaks to a donor to the 
Rangel Center.
  January 28, 2009: Representative Carter, Republican from Texas, 
introduces the Rangel rule, a bill to eliminate all IRS penalties and 
interests for paying taxes past due, the reason for that rule being 
that's the way the IRS treated the chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee, and I took the position that that was only fair.
  August 12, 2009: Rangel amends his financial disclosure forms for 
2002 to 2006, effectively doubling his wealth that he now acknowledges 
to the country.
  October 6, 2009: Representative Carter introduces a resolution 
demanding that Rangel step down as the Ways and Means chairman.

[[Page 13991]]

  October 8, 2009: The Ethics Committee expands the Rangel 
investigation to all 2009 financial statements.
  February 26, 2010: The Ethics Committee admonishes Rangel for 
accepting the Caribbean trip.
  March 3, 2010: Rangel steps down as chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee after Representative Carter prepares to introduce another 
privileged resolution.
  July 22, 2010: The Ethics Committee announces that its subcommittee 
investigating Rangel alleges House rules violations and that they will 
be made public on July 29.
  So from September 24, 2008 to July 29, 2010, this House dealt with 
the issues concerning Mr. Rangel. What's not on this board and should 
be is that on the floor of this very House--and really what launched us 
into realizing this was going on--was Mr. Rangel stepped before the 
House and told us every one of these things, every one of them, and 
said he had turned himself in to the Ethics Committee. Well, I'd like 
to explain that those of us that deal with the law have a saying, 
``justice delayed is justice denied.'' And that's one of the reasons 
why we have speedy trial acts in many of the jurisdictions in this 
country because justice delayed is justice denied.
  Now, when we're talking about justice, we're not talking just about 
justice for the individual defendant, we're talking about justice for 
everyone involved.

                              {time}  2050

  If it's a criminal case, we're talking about the kind of justice 
where the State, representing the people of a State or of this country, 
is desiring justice on behalf of the people, and the defendant is 
desiring justice on behalf of the defendant. It doesn't really matter 
who it is or who is being denied this justice, whether it be the people 
as represented by the State or the government or whether it be the 
individual who may be the defendant who is looking for individual 
justice. Any undue delay in dealing with a problem like this is justice 
denied.
  So we are in July. We are just 1 month and 20-some-odd or 30-some-odd 
days--let's just be honest and call it 2 months--we are just 2 months 
away from 2 years of dealing with the situation with Mr. Rangel. He 
stood right there at that microphone and told us about it for over an 
hour on the floor of this House.
  Now, having seen some very unusual releases by the Ethics Committee 
about the scope of their investigation, I will say they have done a 
very comprehensive and a very effective investigation of this case. I 
want to say that from the outset because I am certainly not in any way 
demeaning the work ethic of that committee. But when we have the leader 
saying that we have to deal with this, you have to ask: How does this 
compare with other cases? How does this compare with the kind of 
justice we were seeking at other times?
  There was a time in the not-too-distant past when one whole half of 
this House, the half that was in the majority at that time, was accused 
by the minority--and this was every one of us on the Republican side--
of being involved in a culture of corruption because of certain issues 
that very validly were dealt with both by the Justice Department, with 
some people ending up in prison, and by our Ethics Committee.
  It is the duty and the responsibility of the leadership that leads 
this House of Representatives--and that leadership is headed by Nancy 
Pelosi--to make sure that we are going forward, that we are going 
forward in a very effective way and that we are getting to the root of 
the problem as quickly as possible.
  I would argue that after this 2 years, less 2 months, that we have 
been dealing with the Rangel case, it is still not resolved; and now 
there is at least some speculation that there will be no resolution of 
this issue until after the November elections or at least until after 
the New York primary elections. You know, the primary voters ought to 
know the resolution of this problem. They ought to know what is going 
to happen as they go to vote in the New York primary, but it doesn't 
look like we are going to resolve it even by the time the voters have 
had a chance to express their opinions one way or the other against any 
of the candidates that are involved.
  I think that is justice denied.
  We're moving forward. I'm not rushing. I've had people ask me 
questions about resolutions and so forth. I believe in the system, and 
I am hoping this system is now off high center and is moving forward 
with haste, but sometimes it takes somebody like me just down here, 
talking and talking and talking, to remind folks we have a duty to 
everybody in this House, to everybody in this country and to the 
individuals who are accused to resolve the issues. This issue has been 
on the forefront for a long time; but if we don't get through this, 
just look at what has happened in this period of time.
  Mr. Rangel was in charge of the committee. There have been major 
pieces of legislation that he has ushered through this House. Maybe 
it's appropriate. Maybe it's not. We don't know. We haven't resolved 
this issue. We don't know whether any of these allegations have been 
actually addressed. We don't know what the outcome is going to be, and 
we are probably not going to know before the people of New York have a 
chance to go vote in their primary. I don't think that's the right way 
that ought to be. I don't think the average American thinks that's the 
right way it ought to be either.
  Here is a fairly recent statement. I don't have a date on it. I 
apologize for that. It is from the Congressional Daily: ``Massa Case 
still hangs over Dems,'' meaning Democrats. ``For House Democrats, how 
soon will the other ethics shoe drop--and how hard?''
  ``A House Ethics subcommittee's finding last week that Representative 
Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, violated congressional ethics 
rules comes at a politically awkward time in these months before the 
November 2 midterm elections.''
  So I guess this is very current.
  ``Little word has emerged from another Ethics panel reviewing whether 
Speaker Pelosi and other House leaders or their aides mishandled 
initial complaints of sexual harassment against former Representative 
Eric Massa, Democrat from New York, by male staffers.''
  So here we have another issue that's hanging out there, and you ask: 
Well, what's the big hurry on this? When did this happen? What is the 
timeline?
  Well, let's compare this timeline to a timeline we know, because we 
had another event in this House where there were allegations of sexual 
misconduct, and so we are going to talk about both of them and compare 
them and see where we are.
  The Mark Foley case. This is back when the Republicans were in charge 
of the House of Representatives:
  On September 29, 2006, Representative Foley resigned after 
allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior with House pages. On 
October 5, 2006, which was in a week and a half, the Ethics Committee 
launches the investigation. On December 8, 2006, the Ethics Committee 
concludes the investigation. Foley's resignation and the investigation 
totals 70 days. The accusations were: What did the House Republican 
leadership know ahead of time about Mark Foley and about the 
allegations against him?
  We have the Eric Massa case:
  What are the allegations? What did the Democrat House staff know 
about the allegations against Mr. Massa? At what time did they know it? 
How far before it was actually reported? On March 8, 2010, 
Representative Massa resigns. On April 21, 2010, the Ethics Committee 
launches the investigation. The Massa investigation today is 141 days 
and counting. It is not resolved.
  Let's have a comparison. By our little example right here, it takes 
twice as long under the Democrats as the Republicans--and still 
counting. Heck, if you look at the Rangel case, it may be 2 years 
before it's resolved, and maybe it will be next week. I don't know when 
it's going to be; but the point is that, already, we are 141 days into 
exactly the same kind of allegations. What did the Speaker and the 
majority leader

[[Page 13992]]

know? In the case that involved the Republican-led Congress, it was 
resolved in 70 days. In the case under the Democrat-led Congress, we 
are at 141 days and counting.
  So there is a responsibility here when you are in the leadership of 
this House of Representatives. The committee has to move, and it has to 
move at a pace. Believe me, even though the committee has exactly the 
same number of people--of Democrats and Republicans on the Ethics 
Committee--it still has a chairman and a ranking member. The chairman 
is in charge of the majority, and the ranking member is in charge of 
the minority; but the chairman leads the committee, and the chairman is 
appointed by the Speaker.
  So here we are. Let's compare the two Ethics Committees: one 
Republican-appointed chairman and one Democrat-appointed chairman. I 
have nothing against the chairman. In fact, I happen to like the lady a 
lot--I really do--but the facts are they're not moving at the speed 
they need to move to get justice done. There may be absolutely nothing 
to this. There may be a slight mishandling. It was resolved in 70 days 
under the Republicans. We are at 141 days and counting right now.

                              {time}  2100

  I think that's something we need to think about. I think it's our 
obligation as Members of this House to point this out to people, point 
this out to the Members of this Congress, point this out to the 
American people. Because why should we do it? Maybe we wouldn't have 
such an obligation if the Speaker of the House hadn't told us that this 
was going to be the most honest, open, and most ethical Congress in 
history. In 200-plus years, it's going to be the most honest, open, and 
ethical Congress. With that kind of declaration by the leadership here, 
that kind of promise to the American people, then that promise ought to 
be kept.
  People are tired. They're tired, and that's why nobody likes this. I 
told somebody today, I said, You know, when your congressional approval 
is 11 percent, you've got to worry if folks at church and folks in your 
own family even like you.
  That's not the way it's supposed to be. This is supposed to be an 
honorable group. And I think it is. I honestly think it is. But it's 
this kind of justice delayed, this kind of not letting us know what's 
going on that is not open and it's not honest, and I think I could 
almost argue it's not ethical.
  So if you're going to promise those things, you've got to deliver. 
And if you need to go down to the committee and say, I'm here to tell 
you what I know, step up and do it. Don't wait to be subpoenaed. 
Resolve the issue. It's fair to all involved, both the American people 
and the individual involved.
  That's what I have been saying for 18 months on the floor of the 
House. There are those who think that I am a hatchet man against 
Charlie Rangel. I am not. I have said it every time I have spoken. He 
is owed the right to have this matter resolved, just as much as the 
American people are owed the right.
  Now, the extent of the investigation was complex. The alleged 
occurrences against Mr. Rangel were more difficult than the average 
stuff, because a lot of it dealt with stuff you have to deal with taxes 
and tax lawyers and CPAs and who else, no telling what else.
  But still, we've got to break this cycle of accusations that die or 
go to sleep in the Ethics Committee. Somebody shouldn't believe, if 
they turn themselves in, the thing will go into a bottomless pit, a 
dark hole, and disappear in the slow, snail's pace movement of the 
Ethics Committee. And every member of that Ethics Committee, both sides 
of the aisle, are honorable people, so do not misunderstand that I am 
in any way defaming any of those people. I am not.
  But we have had lots of other things come up in this Congress that 
really haven't been addressed. Now, I'm not saying that every time 
somebody puts something in the newspaper that that makes it 
automatically something that ought to go directly to an accusatory 
situation, but these are just some of the headlines that have happened 
in the last couple of years:
  New York Daily News, ``The FBI joins Massa probe of sexual 
harassment, hush money, and coverups.''
  ``Norm Dicks is about to go from Mr. Boeing to Mr. Spending,'' The 
Washington Post. I am not sure that should be in there.
  CQ says, ``Representative Waters calls TARP meeting for her husband's 
bank.'' Has that been looked into? I don't know.
  Landmark Legal Foundation files House ethics complaint against 
Conyers. Has anything been done about that?
  Roll Call, Mollohan charity got a rental deal. Allegations that Mr. 
Mollohan made some special realty deal to his charity. And the voters 
took care of that problem.
  Weekly Standard, ``GOP proposes earmark moratorium in wake of the PMA 
scandal.'' The PMA scandal was a scandal that involved--let's see, who 
was that? Please forgive me. I am a little under the weather tonight.
  ``Congressman Pete Visclosky has less than half the cash on hand for 
reelection bid than he did this time 2 years ago, but his legal bills 
keep growing.'' This is from the Associated Press in 2010, July 19. It 
points out that he has spent $100,000 on legal fees since April. The 
Times of Munster reported Saturday that the new amount brings to more 
than 400,000 the total Visclosky has spent on expenses related to the 
Federal investigation of the PMA Group. PMA is suspected of making 
straw donations to lawmakers that concealed the true source of the 
money. PMA represented defense clients, including several Visclosky 
donors who received Federal earmarks. So that's what that's all about. 
The Republicans decided to have a moratorium on earmarks in light of 
the PMA scandal because, I guess, the way we Republicans looked at it 
was enough's enough.
  ``Geithner tax woes examined.'' Now, this is an old story. But the 
Secretary of the Treasury, who we saw on the talk shows this weekend 
talking to us about the economy and how we should believe that things 
are getting better and how we should trust that things are getting 
better, he received an extra payment with the taxes included in a 
separate check, the way I understand it, to pay his taxes, and he 
didn't pay his taxes. And when he got appointed to the Treasury, to be 
the Secretary of the Treasury, it came out that he hadn't paid these 
taxes. So he paid the taxes, and he may have even paid the interest, 
but I don't think he paid a penalty. So he's about half the Rangel 
rule. Rangel didn't pay penalty or interest.
  You have a taxpayer who pays both penalty and interest. And, you 
know, here's the problem with all this stuff about whether you paid 
penalty and interest, whether you paid your taxes on time. Were you 
treated differently than the average guy?
  There is a lady, and I am not going to mention her name, but she's at 
our grocery store where we shop back home in Texas, and her son failed 
to pay some taxes, and he was just a guy. He did the best he could to 
try to explain why he didn't pay the taxes. The taxes were not as 
sizable, anywhere near as sizable as the ones either involved in 
Geithner or Rangel's case, and that young man spent 3 years in the 
Bastrop Federal Penitentiary in Bastrop, Texas. And his mother told us 
this at the HEB grocery store in Round Rock, Texas.
  A lot of people come to judges, former judges like me, and tell them 
stories about problems that their family's having, I guess because we 
used to be in the business and we maybe could give them some 
compassion, I suppose. But the point is I'm not saying anybody deserves 
to go to the penitentiary in these cases. That's up to the Justice 
Department. If the Justice Department fairly and equitably does its 
job, which seems to be in some question right now, then they will deal 
with it. And I still have faith in the justice system of the United 
States, and I still want to have faith in the Justice Department.
  But going back to where we started, most importantly of anything, 
Americans want to be treated equitably by those who enforce the rules; 
and, arguably, Mr. Geithner and Mr. Rangel got special treatment.

[[Page 13993]]

  So at some time later on this week, we're going to have the beginning 
of a resolution of Mr. Rangel's case. The White House, which certainly 
this Congress's Ethics Committee doesn't have anything to say about the 
workings of the Secretary of the Treasury, there doesn't seem to be 
anything being dealt with at all by the White House on Mr. Geithner.

                              {time}  2110

  There's other accusations about the White House, Mr. Rahm Emanuel 
served on the board of Freddie Mac while these so-called fraudulent 
lending practices were going on, and he just says he didn't notice 
them, I guess. It doesn't seem to interfere with what he's doing at the 
White House, even though he came to this Congress with $25,000 worth of 
Freddie Mac donations, and the White House is now giving $200 billion 
to Freddie Mac. And in the meanwhile, Mr. Emanuel was living rent free 
in the home of one of the basement's of one of our other Members of 
this Congress.
  These things have been raised but they've disappeared because he's no 
longer under the House Committee. And so I guess it's up to the 
administration to give us justice on those issues or even look into it.
  Now, we're leaving out the Senate money trial of former Illinois 
Governor Blagojevich and possible involvement of House Members, and 
allegations against Mr. Conyers of Michigan, the fact there was a 
conviction of former Congressman William Jefferson, the sex payroll 
scandal of former Congressman Tim Mahoney. And we can review these 
cases for a long time, but there is no reason to go into those things.
  But all of these things have to be brought up because we are not the 
most open, ethical Congress in the history of this United States. It 
was promised, and that promise has not been delivered upon. And I think 
that we have a duty, as Members of this House, to examine that and 
wonder why the leadership of this House has not delivered on that 
promise.
  I don't expect the Speaker to know or be in charge of every private 
life of every Member here. God forbid. Nobody wants that. That's way 
beyond the pale. But there are duties and responsibilities that leaders 
have.
  And I would argue that we saw what happened when other leaders had 
accusations against them because in the Republican Congress they went 
there, gave their side of the story, got it resolved in 70 days. We're 
still waiting to resolve an almost identical case. The question was 
what did the Speaker of the House, Hastert, know about the Mark Foley 
case. The question here is what did the Speaker of the House, Nancy 
Pelosi, know about the Massa case? Why 70 days versus 141 days? That's 
a question we ought to be asking ourselves. I don't have the answer. I 
have the question. I can make some presumptions. The answer is maybe 
failure to cooperate. Maybe not. Maybe I'm too busy to talk to you 
today. Maybe not. Who knows what the reason is. But there's 70 more 
days in one investigation than the other. The other's resolved. The one 
that's 71 days older is not resolved.
  Justice delayed for anybody is justice denied. A reasonable amount of 
time to prepare your case, of course. Making a proper investigation, of 
course. I cannot fault any of those things. But especially when it 
involves those who are in leadership of the House, it would seem to me 
they should give an extraordinary effort to go do what they can do to 
move the investigation along to a conclusion. If it means volunteering 
to go before the committee at the very soonest possible time and 
setting aside other things like fundraisers in San Francisco or trips 
to Chicago and going before the Ethics Committee and resolving the 
issue, it seems to me that's the way it ought to be done. That's what 
the American people would expect.
  I want to commend the Ethics Committee for coming forward with the 
Rangel case. I take the position at this time that the process is moot 
now going forward after over close to a 2-year investigation. I for 
one, still believing in the system, believe that the system will do the 
right thing and move with haste to conclude this issue that is still 
hanging over Mr. Rangel's head and still hanging over the House of 
Representatives' head, still hanging over the American people's head.
  This is the people's House. Everybody in here was elected by people. 
There was nobody in here appointed, ever, to this position. Everyone 
who ever served in this Congress served because they were elected by 
people. You can't say that about the Senate. But you can say it about 
this House.
  So when I say the House deserves an answer, the American people 
deserve an answer, it's because they do. They deserve an answer. And I 
hope this thing will be resolved. And it would be very appropriate if 
we resolve at least some of the issues, if possible, before the people 
of New York are asked to cast a vote in a primary later on in the next 
few weeks. I'm not sure that's possible because we're about to go into 
recess. But it's a shame that we're not giving the information to the 
people of New York that they should have.
  I want to thank the Speaker for allowing me to come in here in as 
many weeks and do this talk, and I will probably be talking about other 
things in the future.
  But we have so many things that we, as people, can disagree on, which 
is fine. That's what democracy is all about. But overwhelmingly 
Americans agree that they want a justice system that works, and they 
want folks to follow the rules, and they want everybody to be treated 
or given at least the equal opportunity to be treated fairly. And as 
long as I feel like there's people not being treated fairly or others 
being treated more special than others, I think it's my job and the job 
of every Member in this House to step up here and say, That's not 
America.

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