republicans, and he initiated this process himself. he faces a long list of charges and according to the "new york post" he may be facing a brand new charge today. molly henneberg, live in washington for us. so molly, the congressman as we just saw from a little portion of his opening statement, he's defending himself. what can you tell us about the that? >> reporter: hi rick. he is a lawyer, having been an assistant u.s. attorney before being first elected to congress in 1970 but obviously it's been a while since he's been a practicing lawyer. rangel and his high powered washington lawyers hat a -- had a parting of the ways after he paid them $1.4 million to defend him against these ethics charge. he also said he couldn't afford to keep paying lawyers that much money. head going this trial today, rangel had not indicated he had a lawyerenting him and that he would defend himself against these 13 alleged ethics violations. there's also a report today from the "new york post", owned by parent of fox news channel, that rangel may have used money from his political action committee