Rangel Ethics Inquiry Widened

The House Ethics Committee announced on Thursday that it had expanded its investigation into a series of questionable financial dealings made by Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York.

The move comes a day after House Democrats defeated a Republican attempt to force the removal of Mr. Rangel, a Democrat, from the chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee pending the outcome of the investigation.

The move seemed intended to show that the ethics committee was conducting a serious and wide-ranging investigation, listing the number of witnesses the committee had interviewed (34) and the number of subpoenas it had issued (150) in the case.

Read more: (Raymond Hernandez, “Wider Ethics Inquiry for Rangel,” The New York Times, 10/09/09)