Rangel Responds Indignantly

How dare you question Charlie Rangel. That's the thrust of his response to yesterday's New York Times report (posted online yesterday and in today's paper).

In a sheet passed out by Rangel's staffers, we finally get a sense of the timeline:

My wife, Alma, and I moved into 40 West about 20 years ago. Our apartment - the same place we live in today — was two units combined into one by the previous occupant, Dr. Eugene Callendar, a prominent minister and community leader. It is where we raised our two children and where our three grandchildren visit with us.

A few years ago, as our family grew, we rented a small unit next door to our apartment, which served as a sort of den and work room for me and as an extra room for our children, and now our grandchildren, to sleep when they visit us.

The office mentioned in the story is a small apartment, which I use for working and to make fund-raising calls. When the apartment was rented about 10 years ago, there was no question about whether it was appropriate in view of the fact there were — and still are — other offices in the building.

Two units were apparently combined at some point prior to Rangel moving in, a third was obtained adjacent to the first two, and the fourth, the office, was rented beginning about 10 years ago.

He's using the everyone does it defense to accusations that using the apartment as an office violates the rent stabilization rules.

Sorry Charlie, it doesn't work that way, and you are not entitled to those additional apartments either.

And claiming that you've done a lot of work to get affordable housing built doesn't help your cause either as you've taken advantage of the system you helped build disproportionately to what anyone else could get away with.