Rangel Inquiry Expanded by House Ethics Panel

The House ethics committee voted on Tuesday to expand its investigation into Representative Charles B. Rangel to examine his role in preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company whose chief executive pledged $1 million to a City College of New York project that will bear the congressman’s name.

Mr. Rangel, whose personal finances and fund-raising have been the subject of an inquiry for several months, came under renewed scrutiny last month, when The New York Times reported that he was a pivotal figure in stymieing efforts to close a tax shelter for Nabors Industries and three other companies during the same month that the chief executive of Nabors made a $100,000 donation to C.C.N.Y.’s Rangel Center of Public Service.

Read more: (David Kocieniewski, “House Ethics Panel Expands Rangel Inquiry,” The New York Times, 12/10/08)