Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday followed through on his promise to file an ethics complaint against himself, but he also offered a vigorous defense of his effort to solicit support for a New York City educational center bearing his name.

The powerful Ways and Means Committee chairman acknowledged in a missive to the House ethics committee that he sent out more than 100 letters on congressional letterhead that asked leaders of charitable foundations, companies and businesses to support the City College of New York (CCNY).

The letter requesting a ruling from the ethics panel conspicuously failed to address a separate and possibly more serious issue raised in articles in The New York Times: Rangel’s use of four rent-controlled apartments (one of them as a campaign office) in Harlem’s Lenox Terrace building.

Most New York citizens are unable to have more than one rent-controlled apartment at a time, and the city’s regulations bar the use of rent-controlled apartments as office space. Rangel said he wouldn’t ask for an investigation but would give up the unit used as an office. Ethics expert regard the acceptance of more than one rent-controlled apartment as a potential violation of the House gift ban.

“This is what I consider the more serious transgression,” said Public Citizen’s Craig Holman. “This is far more serious than the misuse of congressional office materials, because it shows a pattern, on the part of the owners of the apartment complex, of giving out gifts to public officials as a means of influence-peddling.

“If members of the ethics committee opt to investigate only the contents of Rangel’s letter, they will not be doing their jobs,” he added.

House rules require the ethics committee to initiate an investigation if a sitting House member files a formal complaint with the panel. The panel can expand any investigation far beyond the contents of the complaint.

Rangel’s letter may be seen an attempt to control the spin before an ethics committee vote against him. The panel is scheduled to meet Thursday, and leaders on both sides of the aisle expect it to launch a probe into the ethics questions swirling around Rangel.

In his letter to the ethics committee, Rangel continued to drive home the argument that none of the letters asked specifically for financial contributions. He said the letters only sought meetings to encourage a “dialogue” and meetings with leaders of CCNY to provide information about Rangel’s “vision” for the center.

He did concede, however, that the goal of any meetings he helped convene would result in financial donations to the Charles Rangel Center for Public Service at CCNY.

“Was my hope that these meetings would result in making financial donations to this important project with such an important public purpose?” he wrote. “Of course.”

Rangel requested the committee’s “most comprehensive review and expeditious reply” to his request for a decision. If the committee finds him in violation, he wrote that he would trust and accept its findings.

The lawmaker said he sent 100 letters on his congressional stationery in June 2005. The next July, he followed up with approximately 47 letters to a portion of the original mailing. Last year in March, he sent three additional letters to longstanding friends “who are committed to philanthropy.”

The letter to the ethics panel included an example from each mailing.

The goal of the center is to help the college attract more students from diverse racial and economic backgrounds to careers in public service. It would also serve as a vault for Rangel’s congressional and state legislative papers over the past 40 years and provide an office for Rangel’s use after he retires. This, some ethics experts have argued, would constitute a “financial gain.”

Rangel also stressed that none of the people, businesses or foundations he wrote to had any “pending requests into my office, lobbied me regarding legislation before my committee, or asked me for assistance on legislation in which they had a special interest."