Politics

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) fought back Thursday, ripping into the Washington Post, following questions surrounding his fundraising methods for pet projects. He's now calling on the House Ethics Committee to investigate.

No one can ever accuse Rangel, the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, of being a pushover. Days after he dealt head-on with a controversy surrounding his campaign's use of a rent stabilized apartment, Rangel is now squaring up against the Washington Post. His bottom line: he's willing to place himself under investigation in order to clear his name.

"I want to see how much damn ink the Washington Post has," Rangel told reporters during a morning news conference.

The long-time Harlem congressman has declared war against the Post, challenging the paper to help him get his case involving fundraising letters for his non-profit foundation in front of an ethics committee.

"This is my one chance to do this congressional thing here and I don't want to beat up too much on the Washington Post either, but just enough to get someone's attention. Now that's just a crummy thing that they've done," he said. "If no one files the complaint and if the reporter fails to get the Washington Post to file the complaint then I'm directing my staff to show me how I can file an inquiry against myself."

Earlier this week the Post printed an article detailing letters written by Rangel on congressional stationery to various potential wealthy donors to the Charlie B. Rangel Center for Public Service at CCNY. The alleged conflict: some of those potential donors have appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Rangel denies the conflict of interest, and called out the reporter who wrote the story.

"Did you find in any letter due to your creative investigation any requests for money?" Rangel asked the reporter, who replied that he'd "let the letters speak for themselves." 

Rangel responded by saying: "Let the record state that the reporter that wrote the story … refused to answer whether he saw in the letter in question anything about the solicitation of funds."

Rangel spoke for nearly an hour on the topic during the news conference.

"I consider this official business," he said. "The whole concept was to encourage CCNY to focus on public service as a goal and career goal for some of its graduate members.

"Nobody that can read is going to bring any charges against me, including The Washington Post, which, of course, I encourage them to do it; because then they have to follow their own foundless story, and at least that gets some coverage on this in The Washington Post," he added.

As he ended his news conference, the Rangel told reporters that whatever happens, he doesn't believe this story will do anything to harm his political career.

Gary Kalman, Director of the Federal Legislative Office at the U.S. PIRG, wasn't so sure, however.

"If he's writing letters to large corporations asking for their donation and their help for an institution that's named after him, I think that raises a whole series of problems and questions about whether he can be impartial about doing his job," he told CBS 2.

Voters in Rangel's home district have mixed opinions.

"I do think he was doing something wrong," said Harlem resident Alida Johnson.

Added Dawn Ross, also a Harlem resident: "Technically it shows conflict of interest. Because it's gonna show, 'You do well for me I do well for you.'"

But Bronx resident Aaron Queen stood behind Rangel.

"Rangel has been a pretty good politicians for years. I don't think he purposely did things to break the law."

CBS 2's Jay Dow and Don Dahler contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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