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Ethics panel probes alleged Rangel quid pro quo
The House ethics committee is investigating an alleged quid pro quo between Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and an oil company executive, the subject of a lengthy New York Times article published in December. Eugene Isenberg, the oil executive accused of trying to influence Rangel through a $1 million donation to the education center bearing Rangel's name, is cooperating with an ethics committee investigation into the matter and predicts that the panel will find no wrongdoing. "I have faith that the American justice system will reflect the actual facts of the situation, which the ethics committee was given," said Isenberg, chief executive of Nabors Industries, an oil drilling company. The assertion was caught on tape during a conversation with Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog that has investigated several ethics stories about Rangel. Flaherty approached Isenberg at the company's annual meeting in Houston last week, taped the conversation and provided The Hill a transcript and audio recording. Isenberg also called the New York Times story "total malarkey" and said he would "guarantee" that the ethics committee would find that the Times was "demonstrably wrong in their conclusions and implications." "The ethics committee will, I guarantee you, will get through that," Isenberg stated. "You guarantee it?" Flaherty asked. "Yep," Isenberg responded. "You have some inside information?" Flaherty asked. "No, except I know what questions were asked and what information was provided, which I'm not supposed to discuss and therefore I won't," he said. The Times story alleges that Rangel was instrumental in preserving a lucrative tax loophole that benefited Isenberg's company, while at the same time Isenberg was pledging $1 million to the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at City College of New York. Part of the story describes a meeting between Rangel, Isenberg and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau at the Carlyle Hotel in February 2007. The Times article says there were actually two meetings, the first in which the three discussed Isenberg's support for the Rangel Center at the breakfast and a second involving Ken Kies, Isenberg and Rangel, in which Kies asked Rangel about the legislation affecting Isenberg's company and whether he still opposed it. Posted by: 2009-06-12 |
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