ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reports: Senior House Democratic aides say that House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel is negotiating terms with Democratic leaders to step down temporarily from his post atop the powerful tax-writing committee, pending the completion of several ethics committee investigations into his conduct. 
 
 But while aides say he is temporarily negotiating to step down, Rangel remained publicly defiant and emerged from a meeting with Democratic leaders tonight saying he would hold on to the chairman’s gavel. 
 
 According to aides, Rangel was in the Democratic cloakroom Tuesday evening, working out the details of a temporary resignation with House parliamentarian and Democratic leaders. 
 
 But upon leaving the meeting, Rangel was asked by reporters if he would remain chairman, and he replied, “You bet your life.” Pelosi, who was at the meeting, declined to comment. 
 
 Rangel also said he was still the chairman, and denied that he was stepping down as chairman. 
 
 Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., is next in line in seniority and would be the most likely person to take over at least temporarily. 
 
 ABC News' Dean Norland contributed to this report. ||||| Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel is still clinging to his gavel, but it is no longer a question of if – but when, how and to whom – he will give it up, according to Democratic insiders. 
 
 With his ethics problems becoming an albatross around the necks of his party’s most politically vulnerable members, the venerable New York Democrat was pushed deep into a corner Tuesday night – meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a covey of aides in her ceremonial office in the southeast corner of the Capitol. 
 
 He insisted he that he is still chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee but couldn’t guarantee that would still be the case by the end of today. 
 
 “I can’t make all those promises at my age,” he said as he left the meeting with Pelosi late Tuesday. 
 
 Republicans are ready to a force a floor vote on whether he should be stripped of his chairmanship, and that’s a lose-lose proposition for Rangel. For him to win that kind of vote, some Democrats in tough swing districts – including those in his home state of New York – would have to put themselves in further electoral jeopardy by backing him up. 
 
 Last week’s ethics committee judgment that Rangel violated House gift rules by accepting travel to the Caribbean appeared to be the last straw for many of his rank-and-file colleagues. Even as House Democratic leaders said over the weekend that they would await the outcome of the committee’s work on several other allegations against Rangel, so-called Frontline Democrats – those the party has identified as most vulnerable to defeat in November – began making their decisions to dump Rangel. 
 
 If all House members vote and all 178 Republicans favor removing Rangel, the GOP would need 39 Democrats to help oust him. 
 
 The public list of Democratic defectors was still less than half that Tuesday night, but Democratic lawmakers and aides said the ranks were swelling quickly behind closed doors. 
 
 The group that has publicly abandoned Rangel includes not just members who are in danger of losing their seats but also at least three – Artur Davis who is running for governor of Alabama and Reps. Brad Ellsworth and Paul Hodes, who are seeking Senate seats in Indiana and New Hampshire, respectively. 
 
 Those camps could easily be joined by “good government” liberals who are uncomfortable not only with the first judgment against Rangel but also the scope and nature of the allegations against him: that he failed to pay taxes on a Dominican rental property, that he improperly solicited funds for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York, that he broke New York City rules by maintaining multiple rent-regulated apartments and that he omitted hundreds of thousands of dollars of income and assets from financial disclosure forms that lawmakers are required to file with the House. 
 
 As the defections mounted, press aides were quick to send out releases to reporters working on the story – or at least make sure their bosses were included on lists of those who would not support Rangel in a floor vote. ||||| New York Rep. Charles Rangel temporarily stepped aside as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday as he struggled with mounting ethics woes that left his political future uncertain at best. 
 
 Rangel's decision cheered Democrats who feared political fallout affecting their own futures, but did little to satisfy Republicans who had been seeking a formal vote bringing about his temporary removal from the chairmanship. 
 
 The 20-term congressman has played a key role in President Barack Obama's attempts to win passage of historic health care legislation. Veteran Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark of California, the senior Democrat on the panel, will serve as acting chairman. 
 
 First elected in 1970, Rangel is among the longest-serving African-American members of Congress, ranking just behind Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., in seniority, and he was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Rep. Barbara Lee of California, the caucus chairman, said, "We look forward to the conclusion of the investigation and to him resuming his position as chairman." 
 
 A number of questions have been raised about the 79-year-old Rangel's conduct. Ethics investigators are looking into his use of his official position to raise money for a New York college center to be named after him and his belated disclosure of at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets and his use of rent-controlled apartments in New York. 
 
 Republicans had been calling for Rangel to step aside since last year, and these demands multiplied after the House ethics panel last Friday released a report accusing him of violating House gift rules in connection with a series of trips he took to the Caribbean. 
 
 The panel said that he had violated standards of conduct by accepting 2007 and 2008 trips to Caribbean conferences that were financed by corporations. It said it could not prove whether Rangel knew of the corporate payments but concluded that members of his staff knew about them — and the congressman was responsible for their actions. 
 
 For his part, Rangel said he didn't even have "constructive knowledge" of the corporate sponsorship of the trips and couldn't be held responsible for something staff members may have known but which he didn't. 
 
 His political problems were compounded by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's promise to drain the swamp of ethics problems after Democrats took over the House — following a 2006 campaign accusing Republicans of fostering a culture of corruption. 
 
 Rangel called his news conference Wednesday on short notice, telling reporters, "My chairmanship is bringing so much attention to the press, and in order to avoid my colleagues having to defend me during their elections, I have this morning sent a letter" asking to be granted "a leave of absence until such time as the ethics committee completes its work." 
 
 Rangel said later Wednesday that his stepping aside "should take care of the political problem" that other Democrats have as a result of his ethics problems. 
 
 "It just seems to me that I should not do anything that would impede the success of other Democrats," he told reporters. 
 
 Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., chairman of the House Democratic caucus, said Rangel told a party meeting "There are things that are bigger than yourself," including his love for his city and state and the important matters before Congress. 
 
 "I think he stands taller in the minds of many people in our caucus for doing it," Larson said. 
 
 Pelosi met with Rangel Tuesday night and declined to endorse his continuing on as chairman. She said Wednesday in a statement, "I commend Chairman Rangel for his decades of leadership on jobs, health care, and the most significant economic issues of the day." 
 
 Fundraising power 
 
 Rangel has raised considerable money for fellow Democrats. His leadership political action committee raised $2.2 million in the 2008 election cycle and spent $2 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He also raises money through a Rangel Victory Fund. 
 
 Republican campaign officials have started criticizing individual Democrats for holding on to chunks of campaign contributions that resulted from Rangel's fundraising. 
 
 As an example of his eroding support, several Democratic House members said they were giving campaign donations affiliated with Rangel away to charity. 
 
 Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona is giving up $14,000; Debbie Halvorson of Illinois, $16,000; and Jim Himes of Connecticut, $16,000. 
 
 Rangel set up the Rangel Victory Fund, to raise cash for his House campaign and for the political action committee. In 2009, most of its fundraising benefited Rangel's campaign. The Rangel Victory Fund steered at least $479,000 to Rangel's House campaign and roughly $70,000 to his National Leadership PAC last year. 
 
 The National Leadership PAC directed $10,000 to Democratic congressional candidates: $2,000 to Senate candidate Michael Capuano of Massachusetts and $1,000 each to New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Reps. Jim Himes of Connecticut, Debbie Halvorson of Illinois and Gary Peters of Michigan and New York Reps. Michael McMahon, Carolyn Maloney, Dan Maffei and Eric Massa. The fund spent at least $60,000 last year on a birthday gala fundraiser Rangel held at the historic Tavern on the Green restaurant in New York.
– Congressman Charles Rangel tonight denied a report that he is giving up his chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee—though he wouldn’t, in speaking to Politico, rule out doing so in the future. “I can’t make all those promises at my age,” said the New York Democrat, admonished by an ethics panel last week for allowing corporations to pay for official travel to the Caribbean. Rangel also told NBC News he’ll remain chairman, but the network’s sources say he will indeed resign after Democratic leaders have asked him to step aside—and, one says, “we don’t have the votes to save him” if it comes to that. ABC News, meanwhile, says the move will only be temporary, until various ethics investigations into Rangel are complete.