Democrat Congressman Charlie Rangel will step down as Ways and Mean Committee Chairman on Wednesday. Sources say that Michigan Democratic Congressman Sander Levin will take over the committee temporarily. Rangel denies that he’s stepping down.
Some details still need to be ironed out, but sources said Rangel has been pushed to step down before the House voted on a bill to forcefully strip him of the coveted chairmanship.
Rangel has been under fire ever since an ethics committee released a report Thursday that found that he violated House rules by accepting two corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean.
via Rangel Giving Up the Gavel | NBC New York.
Update : Charlie Rangel Refuses to Quit
Charlie Rangel emerged from a closed-door meeting in Nancy Pelosi’s office Tuesday night to declare that he’s still the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and hasn’t agreed to give up his gavel – even as some media outlets were reporting that he’d done just that.
But asked whether he’d still be the chairman tomorrow and in the coming days, Rangel said: “I can’t make all those promises at my age.”
And when Pelosi was asked whether Rangel was resigning, she said “no comment.”
Via – POLITICO.com.
Others are reporting that Rangel will just take a short break until the ethics investigation is over.
Rangel, 79, will take a “leave of absence” from the powerful committee beginning Wednesday as a House panel continues to investigate his campaign finances and unreported income from rental properties, NBC News reported.
The Ways and Means chairmanship could temporarily go to Rep. Pete Stark of California, the committee’s second-ranking Democrat, according to ABC News.
via Politics Daily.
Rangel was censured by the House Ethics Committee last week, which found that he knowingly accepted trips to the Carribbean in 2007 and 2008 paid for by large corporations that regularly lobby Congress.
via The Daily Caller