>> i'm sorry in the future. >> who was responsible back then, then? >> as we have said, oversight was fragmented we did not have clear oversight of the cemetery's function. >> who is we? >> anyone, sir. >> so they didn't have a boss or people that they reported to? >> i think they had too many bosses. if i might say more, in the development of the tcms, we worked as mr. metsler said for a couple of years with the office of management and budget. their office of information and regulatory affairs which we understood and i still understand to have expertise in it matters. it is clear now, we relied too much on their involvement in the discussions because they weren't

really in a position to identify these technical problems. one of the things that i would do different in retrospect is i would have called in the army it experts but it wasn't until a year ago when the inspections began that it game clear to me ow bad the situation was. >> madam chair, i have asked a whole host of questions and i hope -- we can find out like the next level, i seem to be getting the old -- boogy woogy here. someone is in charge. i'm in the military and i know who is in charge. >> sir, i know who is in charge today. >> i know you do. >> thank you. >> i appreciate because there is going to be a lot of pressure on you to deliver. like i said, whatever you need from the chair and me and our

colleagues, we need to know, because there was a breakdown of communication. it was like let's just hide it and we know about it. the whole country is empar rassed. it is embarrassing. >> thank you. >> let me start with you, i'm worried we haven't received the report. >> where is it? >> the report is on its way to you right now. it should be here right now. i apologize but it was on its way when i left my office this morning. this is a report that secretary mccue ordered you to prepare to conduct a review of the contracts awarded at the cemetery. it would have been great. we have briefing slides that you prepared. so to the extent that i have had an opportunity to review those slides, i want to talk about a couple of thing that is i know

will be in the report when we s see it. one is the fact that i find astonishing. that the national capitol region contracting center, couldn't locate more than half of the contract files that your team requested. so, we know there are no corp contracting officer representatives. we know there was no one with direct line command responsibility for the contracts we know that the person who was entering into the contracts was the same one deciding about the contracts and submitting the contracts no questions asked and they were get ago proved. now we find that you can't even locate the physical contracts. what -- can i get a response from you about that? and -- >> sab lui have to excuse to ofu on that.

that is shoddy contracting practice. it reflected up the chain to include me. all i can express to you, ma'am, is that we have a series of corrective actions in process right now. and we're going to do all we can as soon as we can starting about three weeks ago to not let that happen any further. >> unfortunately, i don't want my questions to be confrontational to you, but, you are the only one at the table that could have had an opportunity -- >> that is correct. >> had you asserted it to bring some sanity to this contracting process. that was clearly not working. could you explain how mr. higginbotthom was allowed to certify that they were paid for what was paid for that one

person was doing all of those things? >> i did not know and have not seen data to actually verify that that was the case. mr. higginbothom was the program manager for the it effort. he was not the contracting officer, and -- >> who was? >> well it depends on whether the corp of engineers or the center for contracting excellence was handling the contract. >> the officer would have been in one of those organizations. >> so it would have been in yours? >> no, i'm in the office of the assistant secretary. >> do you know who they were on these contracts? >> i do on some of them. i have been in meetings where it was discussed. >> he was operating as a contract officer though, nobody else was touching these thing. >> i understand he was operating

as an officer's representative which is probably what you meant. >> that is what i meant. he watt operating as i corp even though he was also the one who definedlet requireme ed the req decided that no bids were necessary. he did not select them. he did make recommendations to the baltimore district on selection of small business contractor. >> are you ever aware of a time when the contractor that he recommended did not get the work? >> after the fact i have learned that. >> it is a fact for the record that there was never a recommendation that he made that wasn't accepted without question. >> i do not know the answer to that question, it is not something that i was or am now knowledgeable about. >> okay. way back when, in 2003 and 2004

there was a man by the name of rori smith. >> yes. >> that was really in charge of the budget. and had up until that point in time been the point of contact at arlington national cemetery for the budget am i correct? >> yes. >> and he got very frustrated at what he saw was a failure to perform and contracting processes that didn't comply with army regulations. didn't comply with omb regulations and he tried to speak out. are you aware of what happened to him after he spoke out? >> i am aware that he retired. >> are you aware that he was rep manded and suspended? >> after the fact i learned that. >> and you brought him up without name in an e-mail to omb? is and i would like to place

into the record an e-mail dated the 22nd of april, 2004, and e-mail you sent to big mcquaid at omb, subject "amc automati automation". bill, was we prepare for tuesday's meeting with omb and va on the subject. i feel the need to let you know my views on some of this. i have been shocked by the language you have been using in discussions with my staff when discussing the automation efforts. please be aware that i will respond if i hear words like quote unquote disaster, quote unquote stunned, quote unquote throwing money at contracts or no product to show foris. recall that you and others have been briefed in the past on the activities and as a recall the

expert praised anc for the job they were doing. we have listened to past guidance on this subject. i believe you have been in fluns by one disgruntled employee who is trying to stir up controversy to retaliate against managers of which he had disagreements. there is a long history here that i do not intend to put in writing. we welcome to look forward on how you think we can improve the automation efforts. enough said, claudia. so disaster, stunned, throwing money at contractors, no product to show for it, right on the money. >> it is clear now that mr. smith was correct about those things. if you read that message carefully, you will see that i was asked -- telling mr. mcquaid to stop horranging my staff with

inflammatory language. that was not intended to deal with the substance of the issues. >> but you go on to say that of the omb went onto praise them. the context is clear if you read the entire e-mail, you are saying get off our back you are saying we don't want to hear that it is not working, we don't want to hear that it looks like you are throwing money and got getting anything in return. and that was what was going on. did you ever sit down and talk to mr. smith yourself? >> we had a professional working relationship, we interacted regularly over a period of money years. we had many discussions on different aspects of the program and we did not always agree. >> did he tell you that nothing was getting done on the hundreds and thousands of dollars that were going out the door? it is not like somebody like mr.

smith to jump the chain. everything knows what happens when you jump the chain. he was jumping the chain. he saw first hand what was going on and for some reason nobody would listen to him. and here we are 7 years later and he was spot on. i'm stunned. it is a disaster. we were throwing money at contractors and we have absolutely no product to show for it. looking back on it would you have handledility differently now? >> absolutely. >> and how can we be sure that this is not happening somewhere else? is there someone else out there in government that is trying to not to be a whistlebrother and go to the press, and trying to get the attention of people in the position to do something about this? is you were in a position to do something. and he got suspended and rep manded. >> i had no role in that, ma'am.

>> well, it is -- >> no knowledge until after the fact. >> this is one nugget out of a long scenario of catastrophic incompetence. i mean this is just one nugget. it is one that you intersected with and in fairness, i thought that you should have an opportunity to look at this in context and exactly say, now if this were to happen today, if omb were to say to you for an area that you are supervising even though you didn't have complete super vision. if omb were to use the language with you today, how would you handle it differently? >> if mr. smith had come to me and said i have evidence that contracts are being miss managed and records are not being kept and that army regulations are

being violated i would have acted. nothing that clear was ever said to me. i exsepect the people i work wi to follow army regulations and policies. >> so you assumed that mr. metzler were following policy and that mr. smith was going rogue? >> i have records of a number of conversations with mr. smith about things that he was unhappy with and in some cases i agreed with mr. smith and took action. in other cases, i looked into it and found out some facts and ended up disagree wg him. >> was there ever a time that you lost confidence in the leadership at arlington national cemetery? >> over the last year, yes.

>> but before that you had no problem with the leadership there? >> there are all ways issues ma'am, disagreements and issues. >> but you didn't think they rose to the level of you -- getting out of your niche and kind of trying to grab people by the neckties or by the sweaters or whatever you have to grab them by and say, we've got to sit down we have a real problem at arlington? >> i was not aware of most of the things that have been revealed over the last year in the media except that i knew as we all knew that there were problems with the burial records. i understand those to be historical problems and paperwork issues until the revelations of the last year. >> and how do you become aware of burial problems? >> i believe the first one i beam awa became aware of was when

salon.com released a story about a grave in section 68 where -- did not have a marker appropriately. >> okay. so you first became aware by someone at the cemetery in forming someone at the media. >> that is correct. >> okay. mr. harington, when i reviewed the slides, it is clear to me, i'm putting my audit tore hat on now, that there is a whole lot about the boss system that can be transferred over to arlington national cemetery. the notion that you can't use an underlying successful system for keeping track of gravesites because it doesn't include the scheduling needs you have is one of those that go well, that is fixable. i mean, with all due respect, what we are asking here is not complicated. i look at the kind of it systems that you have responsibility

over. i look at what we can do in our army. whether it is the utilization of drones, whether it is the identification of complex cost points, i look at the capability we have within the army and then i look at this and it is frankly jaw dropping that we are actually messing around and saying that we have to go create a new system after we've spent all this money and what worried me about your slides, it appeared to me that we are going down that road. instead of going, wait a minute, we should have adopted boss in the first place. we should have made sure that we jute liszed a system that had already been developed by government employees without

excessive contractor costs that was working and i guess what i need to hear from you is that arlington national cemetery is going to use b.o.s.s. >> excuse me, could i take that question? >> yes, you may. >> senator brown asked me a similar question when you at the vote. >> gone. >> mr. hellinan from the veteran's administration is my partner to fix arlington. one of the things that i have a dedicated -- it review as well. and one of the things we are looking at is the b.o.s.s. system from va because it works from va and asking his expertise of running all 120 cemeteries before he was the acting superintendant we are going to look at the system as can we modify that as well as looking at what was done in previous contracts and see if there were

deliverables that we can use in that. >> mr. harington, the slides gave me the impression that you were going to continue down the road of developing, your guy's powerpoint slides don't speak english as you know. they are ac row nip heavy and in the language of i call it pentagonese, and fro what i can tell, since i haven't seen the report, it looked like you were headed down the road of developing a completely new softwear for aftr loing ton national. >> i would tell you we are assess that go right now. we have been meeting with the staff. we are contract actions are continuing. the leadership in the corn of engineers we have had the meetings so that those requirements that are unique to arlington national that can be

implemented in the va system are recognized. our in tent is to continue to assess those contract actions. and frankly the contract community had a role to play in this all the way through. and we think we need to be more disciplined with our actions. >> right. some so that we help alert and raise the red flag when we see an action that seems to have no end to it. so that is our role ma'am. we will continue to engage and have worked with the staff with the contracting center of excellence in the corp of engineers and we will look, and she has already established a policy that those two activities will be the primary contracting activities and any other requirements surfacing, it would take her waiver to exercise a contract action in another location. we think we have the foe cushcu

the right two activities that do not need to be continued we will stop those. >> are there other orphans out there besides arlington national cemetery. >> clearly what had happened here was that it was a satellite. no one took full ownership. you are not so motivated i'm not casting dispersions toward you, it is hard for me to be completely mad at you, there are four or five other people that could have done what you asked that you could have done. nobody's heads rolled. it is the old finger pointing. are there other orphans out there that you are aware of that don't have a direct report that there is not going to be somebody who will be blamed if this gross miss management were to occur in another place in the army? >> i'm not aware, but i would

say to you that i'm sure we will happen upon them. in our effort to expand our management review process to assess those types of occurences and then to stop them as immediately as we can. to ensure that the chain which mirrors the command chain is robust and understands the obligations to ensure that this process is pure. >> it is my under thatting that the army is looking at this? >> it is my understanding as well. >> and that there have been numerous allegations unfounded at this point. i can't say that there have been documented proof, but there are allegations out there of fraud is that correct? >> yes, there are madam chair. >> so we've got the whole boy kai. >> bouquet. >> we have waste, abuse and

fraud, we have the trifecta and we have it concerning a national pre treasure and that is very, very unfortunate. >> after we review the report we will get back with you about the contracting deficiencies. i would encourage you to whatever extent you can prevail upon army leadership and this is something i need to take up with secretary gates. there needs to be a look around to see if there is any other scandals that could be hiding in a corner where there isn't a clear line of authority or command and there is contracting gone wild. >> yes. >> this in fact, i think you can use this as a text book to teach contracting people. about the worst-case scenario every document i would turn is i would read this and say you've

got to be kidding me. especially for how long it went on. i don't think they were as forth coming as they should have been. they into these problems were significant for a long period of time. is there anything else that any of you would like to add for the record that you ask been asked my either senator brown or myself? >> no, mat dam chair not from me. >> ma'am, as you know, as of june 10th, you have your one individual. >> i know i do and i'm looking at her. >> i have direct report to the secretary of the army and i will you know any questions that this comment has, you know i will come back with progress reports, but as senator brown asked me what i needed from congress, what i really need ma'am, is ti time. time to fix the deficiencies that we have found and that i may found. >> we will give you time. but we, we don't want it to get

slowed done by beaurocratic nonsense. >> you have my promise that will not happen. >> i want you to know that i'm feeling old. this is the second time i have run into you. when i first arrived i was trying to figure out how army material command could be a temporary building and i rep traveling out there somewhat unannounced to check out that very large permanent temporary building. and i recall that you were the one that had to answer difficult questions for me at that point. are you getting the short straw every time are they telling you that? >> i wanted to know if my mother called you ahead of time. because she has the same question. >> there you go. i appreciate you all being here today. we have more information that we continue to gather and we probably have other witnesses

that we may call in before this is said and done and please keep us posted on the progress. i would like to know section by section in the cemetery when you are assured that the mistakes exist. there is no way that the assertion that we know the problems that are there is true. i think you -- wouldn't you acknowledge that? >> ma'am, when senator brown asked me that question, we have found other map discre

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> this morning on "washington journal," a reporter with updates on ethics charges on congressman charlie rangel. we will have the detroit bureau chief of bloomberg discussing u.s. auto makers assistance. "washington journal" begins live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on cspan. >> ralph nader is our guest sunday. he has written more than 20 books since 1965. join our three-hour conversation on consumer protection, corporate accountability, and

activism for ralph nader noon on sunday. the cspan video library has every cspan program since 1987. that includes every author who has appeared on book-tv. the cspan video library is book- t b your way. >> a house ethics subcommittee met his fate to hear a reading of 13 charges against new york democrat charles rangel. those charges are on financial disclosure violations and other result of a nearly two-year investigation. congressman charles rangel has served in the u.s. house since 1971 and was the chairman of the ways and means committee before being forced to step down from that post earlier this

year. this is a half an hour. >> this meeting of the budget to -- edgy mccoury -- of the judicatory subcommittee will come to order. i will ask for the oppressed to recede a little bit so we can see our two witnesses. i would like to make a brief statement before recognize the ranking member of the

subcommittee. the constitution authorizes the house to discipline its members and the importance of that authority was ascribed in the federalist papers by james madison who wrote, "the aim of every political constitution is or ought to be first to obtain rules for men who possess the most wisdom to pursue the common good of society and to take the most effectual precaution for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust to." a public office as a public trust. we live at a time where public skepticism about the institutions in our country is very high. it has been the goal of our ethics committee throughout this congress to rebuild and earn trust by the public and our colleagues. to do so, we have acted unanimously in every case even

though we know we live in an intensely partisan environment and even though our committee is the only one in congress that is evenly divided with five democrats and five republicans. we are also a committee that operates with a bit a professional non-partisan staff. the staff was elected unanimously by the bipartisan committee and at his equally to all of us. found as we are by the presidents of the house, we need to act fairly and without bias or presidents -- or prejudice. in the house, the committee of standards of official conduct is charged with enforcing ethical standards that ensure that members and staff act and a member -- manner befitting the public trust. it is under that authority we meet here today. purpose of this meeting is organization appeared the agenda for today includes hearing from the investigative subcommittee

in this matter. the representatives who led that subcommittee will share with the members of this subcommittee a summary of what they learned during the course of their investigation first, i would like to provide an overview of how we got to this stage in the ethics process in this particular matter and what the subcommittee is and what our role is in the process. nearly two years ago, charlie rangel asked the subcommittee to investigate the investigation on his behavior. after 2008, the committee voted to form a subcommittee to conduct an investigation into his conduct. their representatives were selected to serve on the subcommittee. at that time, rep green was chair of the subcommittee.

as the investigation took its course, the committee twice voted to expand the jurisdiction of the subcommittee first on december 9, 2008, and again in 2009. over the course of the investigation, the subcommittee found "substantial reason to believe that the violation of a code of conduct applicable to the conduct or official duties for the discharge of his responsibilities by a member had occurred." accordingly, on july 22, the investigative subcommittee transmitted a statement of alleged violations to the committee pursuant to committee rules. as chair of the committee, i appointed the members of this subcommittee. that's transmittal completed the work of the investigative subcommittee with the exception of their report to this today.

i like to take a moment to thank all four members of the subcommittee. over the course of two years, they gave substantial time and effort to this test. on behalf of the rest of the subcommittee and the full committee, we thank you. with the work completed the work of the adjudicatory subcommittee begins. we will briefly describe the role of the subcommittee. the role of the subcommittee is to determine at a hearing whether any count in this statement of alleged violations has been approved by clear and convincing evidence. as part of this process, the subcommittee would make findings a fact. the ethics committee non- partisan professional staff would act as the moving party under those proceedings making the case for the violations

alleged by the investigative subcommittee. mr. rangel's council would provide his side of the story. there would be witnesses and other evidence and a hearing would be open to the public unless the subcommittee determines that the hearing or any part of it should be closed. at the conclusion of the hearing, the subcommittee would determine by a a vote of at least five members whether each count or any count in the statement of alleged violations has been proven. the findings of the subcommittee would then be reported to the committee. if the subcommittee were to find that any count in the statement had been proved, the committee would proceed to a sanction phase. two of the members of the fall at this committee are not serving on this adjudicatory committee.

ordinarily, two members of the committee serve on the investigative subcommittee. rep green who served as chair of the subcommittee was acting chair of the full committee when he took on this assignment. since then, his committee assignments have changed and he is no longer on the committee. we would have an uneven 5-4 split between republicans and democrats and since we require an evenly balanced committee, i have designated four democrats and four republicans and to serve. the point is to bifurcate the investigate a portion of the ethics process from the adjudicative face. one group lead the investigation. when that subcommittee concludes

there is substantial reason to believe a violation occurred, a separate group of members who were not involved in the investigation weighs the evidence, makes findings fax, and determines whether a make violation has been proven. the aid of this did not learn of the substantial conclusions of the investigative subcommittee until it concluded its work last week. the rules separate this out so we are not influenced by the proceedings of the investigative subcommittee whose work preceded hours. it is their obligation to decide if the facts were established and whether those that make up a violation of the rules of the house.

our job is to act impartially. we are honor bound to do so with regard to partisanship or bias of any sort. we are required to act honestly and fairly based on the evidence presented to us during this hearing. the public office is a public trust. our task is to determine whether a representative rangel's conduct met that standard. plan to do so in the fairest way possible to all parties involved as well as to the house. with that, i would be pleased to recognize congressman mike mccal, the ranking member for his opening statements. >> thank you for holding this meeting. this is an important day for mr. frankl, for the ethics committee, for the congress but most important for the american people.

as a member of this committee and a former federal prosecutor in the public integrity section of the department justice, i take this responsibility very seriously. for the committee, we have been presented by the investigative subcommittee with 13 very serious allegations relating to mr. rangel's conduct. the committee has not held a public hearing like this since 2002 when it considered evidence against james traficant. he was convicted in federal court of multiple felony counts and served half a decade in prison. for mr. rangel, these proceedings present a fair and public opportunity to be heard before his peers and address each of the serious allegations against him. if these actions and allegations it proven would violate multiple provisions of house rules and

federal statutes. this includes his alleged violation of the most fundamental code of conduct which states that a member of the house shall conduct himself at all times and a member -- in a matter that shall reflect credibility on the house. credibility is exactly what is at stake here. the very credibility of the house of representatives itself before the american people3 . i am mindful of the solemn responsibility we have when we hear about accusations of a fellow member. mr. riegle will present his own version of the desperate we also have an obligation to the american people to protect the integrity and credibility of the house and present evidence supporting each of the 13 counts against him.

it is certainly not lost on any member of this subcommittee on the approval ratings of this body. with only 11% of the public having a positive view of this institution, the pressure is even greater to insure these proceedings are fair, open, and conducted in strictly non- partisan manner. in the mind of the american people, congress has become theletely self servin members feel the rules don't apply to them very who must regain the people's trust there has been talk in the media about mr. reingold negotiating a settlement. under these rules, mr. rangel was given the opportunity under the investigation phase. we are now in the trial phase for the american people deserve to hear the truth in this case and the charges against him. that is precisely why we're

having this meeting here today. the speaker herself has said that we are entering into an era of transparency and accountability. i agree. let us begin today. let justice be served. the evidence to be of value added by the investigative subcommittee must be presented to this subcommittee in the clearest and most straightforward way possible. mr. riegle must be allowed the opportunity to adequately defend himself against this evidence. there is no place for present bill before innocence in this process and there will not be in this case. only this type of process will allow each member of the subcommittee to make an informed and independent determination as to whether clear and convincing evidence has been presented to prove each count alleged against allegedrangel. turning from process to

substance, it is important to note that the allegations presented to us are nothing less than serious. the investigative subcommittee found that mr. rangel solicited foundations and corporations. to fund a center bearing his name at the city college of new york for the allegations are that mr. rangel used his office staff to make solicitations and personally met with corporate executives and lobbyists as part of his efforts to build the center bearing his name. the investigative subcommittee found that mr. rangel's landlord permitted him to use a rent- stabilized apartment for over one year for his campaign office. the subcommittee looked at his financial disclosures and taxes. as a member of congress for

nearly 40 years, the chairman of the ways and means committee which as jurisdiction over tax matters, mr. rangel according to the charges failed to report renton, as federal tax returns and on his a villa in the dominican republic over a period of years. according to the investigative subcommittee, over the course of nearly a decade, decaderangel failed to report more than $600,000 on his financial disclosure statements for these periods. if proven, this would demonstrate that he violated multiple provisions of the house rules and federal statutes. as we prepare to hear the charges against one of our most tendered colleagues in the house, we need to ensure that we have done everything to reassure the american public as a whole that we will handle this matter

with the utmost professionalism and non partisanship that it deserves. we can never forget the public -- that public office is a public trust. with that i yield back them up thank you. >> thank you. we have a statement of alleged violations. joining us today are representative jean green who chaired the investigative subcommittee and representative joe bonner who was the ranking member and also serves as ranking member of the fall at the committee. we have abided them to address us today and summarize their findings and the chair will recognize each of them for about five minutes. first, mr. breen, if you could proceed. >> thank you. the investigative subcommittee

recently concluded its 21-month investigative process and transmitted the statement to the full committee. this investigation began at the request of mr. rangel. none of the members volunteered for this assignment. none of us enjoyed the simon. no one wants to it -- no one -- none of us enjoyed the assignment. no one wants to investigate one of their peers. the members and staff of the investigative subcommittee worked diligently throughout and conducted at least 50 depositions and many informal interviews. one deposition was conducted with mr. rangel and the subcommittee met with him two additional times. throughout the course of the investigation, the subcommittee

issued over one of its 60 formal request for documents and many informal request, reviewed over 28,000 pages of documents and testimony and held more than 50 investigated meetings. we spent many hours together discussing evidence and whether it merited and a charge. -- merited any charge. the charges and the statement of alleged violation go through four subject matters. one is the city college matter. two, the financial disclosure statements. 40, the use of the apartment by the --four, the use of the apartment for fund-raising the

use of the village in the dominican republic. conduct in violation of government service, conduct in violation of the house gift rule, conduct in violation of the postal service lost and banking commission regulations, conduct in violation of the franking statute, conduct in violation of the purpose law and the members congressional handbook, conduct in violation of the letter had rule. conduct in violation of the ethics in government act and house rule 26, conduct in violation of code of ethics for government service, clause 5. conduct in violation of the code of ethics for the government service, conduct in violation

of code of conduct letter and spirit of the house rules, conduct in violation of the code of conduct reflecting disk credibility on the house bradys were adopted -- each of these counts were adopted by majority vote by the investigative subcommittee. for each of these subject matter is, the committee found substantial reason to believe chargesrles rangel's unmerited investigation. we don't make a recommendation. an additional report on the parking matter is enclosed with the transmittal letter. the report and transmittal letter make a recommendation to the house administration to examine the current parking

rules and the enforcement of the rules. this has been a longer process than any of us would have liked. we have detail the reasons for the investigation. throughout the course of the investigation, there has been speculation and inaccuracies reported in the media. to say that mr. rangel was unaware of the subcommittee's actions would be incorrect. due to the standards committee rules regarding confidentiality, the investigative committee has not been unable to public respond to these accusations. the transmittal letter showed give greater clarity to the actions of the subcommittee. i would like to take this opportunity to submit a written response to mr. rangel's response to the full committee. i am thankful to say that the investigative subcommittee has now completed its work and i

would like to thank my colleagues and the other members of the investigative subcommittee for their service. one of the most difficult tasks assigned to a member of congress is to sit in judgment of colleagues. the task is more difficult when the subject of the investigation has mentored so many new members of congress, myself being one of them. i am not -- i know all parties look forward to final resolution of this matter. thank you, madam chair then i think you mr. green. we would be pleased to recognize senator bonner for about 5 minutes. >> thank-you. the very nature of this rare but not on president public meeting

of this subcommittee, there are naturally many questions that many of our colleagues in congress and many of the american people have as it relates to what is going on today in washington, d.c. in the five minutes i have been given, allow me to attempt to answer some of those questions. first, there is no doubt that congressman charles rangel has a compelling story. he was a private, as his autobiography states, left to die on a battlefield in what is now north korea. he earned the purple heart and the bronze star for bravery. he was a fatherless, high-school dropout who went from pushing a hand truck in the garden district of new york city to

becoming one of the most powerful and i believe it's safe to say well-liked members of congress and public figures on capitol hill. life story is not what we are discussing today. that is not why we are here. every american has his or her own story to tell. instead, congressman green and i are here to present to this subcommittee and the american people a summary of a different story altogether. we have a responsibility to submit evidence to the adjudicatory subcommittee that mr. rangel may have broken the rules of the house and brought discredit to this body. the american people have little faith in our ability as their elected representatives to do

our job on their behalf. according to article 1, section 4 of the united states constitution, it is the duty of the house to punish its members for disorderly behavior. as such, this is truly a sad day where no one regardless of their partisan stripe should rejoice. i want to take another minute to explain how we got to where we are. as has been noted, the investigation into these activities has been ongoing for almost two years. these matters are serious. i believe the record will show that even before the ethics committee took the referral from mr. rangel in a formal setting that these matters were being looked to in the informal

process that is granted under rules 18 a to the chair and the ranking member. during the course of this investigation, mr. rangel was given multiple opportunities to settle this matter. instead, he chose to move forward into this public trial phase. since the beginning of the investigation, the full committee has been led by three different chairpersons and two different ranking members. on the investigative subcommittee that is presenting this statement of alleged violation today, we have been well served by mr. green of texas as chair while i have served as ranking member. as also has been noted, we have also been served in this bipartisan subcommittee by mr. scott of virginia and mr. hastings of washington state.

madame chair, i can say with certainty that each of us has every intention of completing this investigation before the end of 2008. due in part to additional evidence that was submitted, multiple delays in receiving recipe as an extension on two separate occasions of the investigative subcommittee pus jurisdiction because of new facts that came before the subcommittee, this investigation has concluded within the past few days. not everyone in this room, much less everyone watching at home on television, made no that the house ethics committee is the only truly bipartisan committee with an equal number of democrats and republicans. it is only one in the entire house. five democrats and five republicans said on this committee in judgment of our

peers. today there are four democrats and four republicans as has already been noted, none of whom volunteered for this duty but who sit now with this responsibility. at times, members of the investigative committee disagreed and some of the counts, ultimately it included in the record should note that all supporting evidence was transmitted to the full committee which unanimous support of the bipartisan investigative subcommittee. while my role as ranking member of the investigative subcommittee now comes to an end, i want to thank mr. green, mr. scott, mr. hastings, and especially the committee staff who have worked countless hours a day and night over the span of almost two years devoted to this

matter. whatever happens from this point forward, i believe it is incumbent on each of us to do our part individually and collectively to take a measured step forward in the direction of helping to restore the trust that the american people have placed in us in this the people's house where we are all privileged to serve. thank you very much. >> thank you very much, mr. bonner. and mr. greene. as i noted at the outset, this is an organizational meeting of the subcommittee. the respondent is not here and is not required to attend this session this meeting is not a forum for parties to make their case. represent rangel has submitted a written statementth.

we have received the statement of alleged violations and various motions filed by the respondent's an investigative subcommittee responding to those motions. mr. rangel has submitted a written statement which will be accepted along with mr. bonner's statement. those materials will be made public. day our colleagues and members of the public and access those documents shortly on the house website. the subcommittee will make additional public statements and notices of meetings and hearings as necessary. and now, this meeting is adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> in a 32-page rebuttal, congressman rangel's legal team denies all 14 charges levied by the house ethics subcommittee. you can read the charges and the legal response to our website, c-span.org. here is what is coming up. live with your phone calls. followed by gavel-to-gavel coverage of the day's proceedings of the u.s. house. you are watching c-span. and in about a half an hour, " new york daily news" reporter richard sist with an update of the ethics charges against congressman charlie rangel.