Politico:

He may fear “death by a thousand cuts” – a stream of damning newspaper stories, private grumblings from Democratic colleagues, a pending ethics investigation – but insiders say House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel has no intention of giving up his powerful post.
To the contrary, the New York Democrat is launching a concerted counterattack against The New York Times, which reported last week that Rangel helped retain a multimillion-dollar tax loophole for an oil drilling company at the same time that the company’s CEO was pledging $1 million to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York. . . .
Rangel’s ethics problems grew significantly worse last week after the Times reported that Rangel met on Feb. 12, 2007, with Eugene Isenberg, the CEO of oil drilling company Nabors Industries, about retaining a tax loophole worth millions of dollars to the company. On the same morning, the Times said, Rangel and Isenberg discussed Isenberg’s $1 million pledge to the Rangel center.
Isenberg first made a $100,000 donation to the Rangel center in December 2006 and followed that up with another $100,000 on Feb. 7, 2007, according to the Times.
Rangel has vehemently denied any link between Isenberg’s donation and his committee’s action – or even that he was aware of Isenberg’s contribution – and aides to Rangel have raised questions about the accuracy of the Times story. Rangel, however, has yet to fully explain why he met with Isenberg and his lobbyist, Ken Kies, on the same day as a committee markup. Neither Isenberg nor Kies, considered by many to be the top tax lobbyist in Washington, were available for comment on Monday.