Politicians on Parade

The most dramatic political scandal of 2010 was the ethics investigation and censure of U.S. representative Charles Rangel. Given a chance to fight the charges against him on the House floor, the 20-term New York Democrat demurred, saying he was too broke to afford legal representation. The lawyers whose tab supposedly pushed Rangel into poverty: a Zuckerman Spaeder team led by partner Leslie Kiernan that parted ways with Rangel in October. By then, Rangel had spent more than $1.4 million in campaign funds on legal fees. The censure didn’t end Rangel’s woes. In December the Federal Elections Commission began investigating a complaint that he had improperly used political action funds to pay some legal bills.

Prospects improved for another embattled lawmaker on December 1, when Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell partner Paul Coggins said that federal investigators had closed a criminal inquiry into whether his client, U.S. senator John Ensign, broke any laws when his family paid $96,000 to a former campaign aide with whom Ensign had an extramarital affair. Ensign wasn’t totally in the clear: a Senate Ethics Committee investigation remained open.