Clyburn: 'I am not defending Rangel; I am defending due process'

The House's third-most powerful Democrat on Tuesday said he would be "at the front of the line" to force embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) out of his Ways and Means Committee chairmanship if the ethics committee discovers he has done "anything criminal."

Although House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) explained he was "concerned" about Rangel's failure to disclose at least $600,000 in financial assets, he stressed during an interview with MSNBC that "due process" would be better served if House lawmakers stepped back and allowed ethics investigators to do their work without interruption.

"I am not defending Charlie Rangel; I am defending due process," Clyburn said. "I am defending the institution of the House of Representatives. We set up an ethics committee to take a look at this kind of thing, and we ought not to get out in front of [it]."

"If we're not going to let them do their work, let's dissolve the ethics committee and do it ourselves," Clyburn added.

Clyburn was one of many House Democrats to vote against the GOP's effort last week to force Rangel out of his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means panel. That resolution, which Democrats defeated easily, later prompted Republicans to allege Democrats were "sidestepping the issue." House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has since given assurances that Republicans would continue to hound Rangel until he stepped down from his post.

But Clyburn fired back at the GOP on Tuesday, reminding Republicans that one of their own — Rep. Jerry Lewis (Calif.) — was also the subject of a serious ethics investigation.

The majority whip expressed particular concern that the California Republican, long criticized for his ties to big lobbyists, was not also a prime target of the GOP's furor, much less their threats of privileged resolutions.

"I said to many people: The one time this has been discussed within the Congressional Black Caucus was last week. And all they said was: Charlie Rangel is being treated differently here than the way one of our other members, on another exclusive committee, (is being treated)," Rangel said, later clarifying he meant Lewis. "And I would never ask him to step aside."