Rangel Versus The New York Times

[MrsT]

http://www.observer.com/2008/politics/rangel-vs-n-y-times

Charlie Rangel is not pleased with The New York Times.

Dogged by a Times reporter after a just-ended press conference in which the dean of the New York Congressional delegation claimed he did nothing wrong by combining a series of rent stabilized apartments into one residence, Rangel bristled at the suggestion that his low rent amounted to an illegal gift from his landlords.

“Paying the legal rent is not a gift. Are you doing this deliberately or are you just stupid? Listen -- if you are paying a legal rent and without the law the rent would be higher, just what school did you go to that could misinterpret that as a gift?”

When the reporter tried to push Rangel, asking if he declared the rent on his income taxes, Rangel said to the reporter, Jeremy Peters, “Don’t make yourself look more dumb than you want. They didn’t give me anything, I’m paying the highest legal rent that I can. So what questions are you making? Is it a gift? No.”

(The Times reported that the rent Rangel has been paying on three combined apartments plus a fourth that he uses as an office is far below market rate, and that he's paying it to a landlord who has aggressively sought to convert other rent-stabilized units -- ones not occupied by influential public officials -- into market-rate housing.)