Rangel under-reported millions in income.

[jimmy olsen]

Disgusting. How do we let guys like this get away with it for so long.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08282009/postopinion/editorials/rangel__again_186857.htm

RANGEL, AGAIN
Last updated: 4:08 am
August 28, 2009

Rep. Charlie Rangel's multimillion-dol lar "oops" this month raises plenty of good questions, but this may be the best: How can Democrats continue to close their eyes to such sleaze?

And, more to the point, this: Will prose cutors follow up on any of it?

Rangel's "corrections" to his financial-disclosure statements from 2002 through 2007 are stunning, even by the low standards of this "error"-prone paperwork-filer -- who, by the way, happens to be in charge of writing the nation's tax laws.

The Harlem Dem now admits that he failed to disclose several million dollars in income and business deals during those years -- including up to $1 million from the sale of a building on 132nd Street.

How could that happen?

Charlie won't say.

Even stranger, city records show that Rangel still owns the building.

How can that be, if Rangel sold it, as he now claims? Maybe the records are wrong, but Charlie's not talking.

There are adjustments -- as much as $780,000 -- in the value of his assets:

* An "omitted" checking account valued between $250,000 to $500,000.

* Another fund worth up to $100,000.

* Unreported investment portfolios said to be between $15,000 and $50,000.

The unreported business deals total a jaw-dropping $3 million. Huh?

So what explains all this?

Yup: Charlie's lips are zipped.

Absent anything dispositive, the best that can be assumed is that the nation's tax-writer-in-chief is sloppy, careless -- dare we say, incompetent? -- beyond all possible credibility.

That's bad enough. But given his mile-long record of "lapses" -- even before these latest "oversights" -- the public is left to wonder: What is Rangel hiding?

Remember, none of this would have come to light at all had the Sunday Post not broken the story, almost exactly a year ago, about his failure to disclose -- and pay tax on -- some $75,000 in rental income from his Caribbean villa.

Then followed revelations about his:

* Four rent-stabilized apartments.

* Apparent quid pro quo in preserving a tax loophole for an oil company that donated $1 million to a planned "public service" center named for Rangel.

Last May, the Sunday Post disclosed yet another Rangel scandal, involving corporate junkets to the Caribbean.

Yes, the House -- which is controlled by fellow Democrats -- has begun investigations. But so far it's failed to act. And there's scant reason to think it ever will.

Dems may rather tolerate such sleaze than take on the Ways and Means Committee chairman, but they do so only by smearing their own reputations.

But this shouldn't stop law-enforcement officials from launching their own probe. Rangel's lengthy, inexplicable "oversights" demand immediate action.

[Caliga]

Congress is corrupt beyond redemption.  Film at 11. 

[KRonn]

Hey come on now! It's probably not easy to keep track of millions, or hundreds of thousands of dollars, or to remember that you sold an expensive asset in any given year. Give good ole Charlie a break. After all, he knows what he's doing, else he wouldn't be on Congressional financial committees.   

[Caliga]

Hey come on now! It's probably not easy to keep track of millions, or hundreds of thousands of dollars, or to remember that you sold an expensive asset in any given year. Give good ole Charlie a break. After all, he knows what he's doing, else he wouldn't be on Congressional financial committees.   

[Kleves]

Prose cutters will be going after Tim any day now.

[KRonn]

So, this has been under some slow/slight investigation for a while now, eh? Going nowhere, really? How about Dodd and another guy, a Republican I think, who had sweetheart deals with Countryside? Still investigating those also? Don't hold your breath waiting for real results, I guess.... 

[Razgovory]

I'm surprised that Tim gave us an article from the NYpost.

[Hansmeister]

So, this has been under some slow/slight investigation for a while now, eh? Going nowhere, really? How about Dodd and another guy, a Republican I think, who had sweetheart deals with Countryside? Still investigating those also? Don't hold your breath waiting for real results, I guess.... 

that was Max Baucus, another Democrat.  But the probability that Congress' ethics "investigations" will result in anything as long as the Dems are in charge is about equal to the odds that obama's justice dep't  would prosecute charges against Governor Richardson or the Blank Panthers.

[KRonn]

So, this has been under some slow/slight investigation for a while now, eh? Going nowhere, really? How about Dodd and another guy, a Republican I think, who had sweetheart deals with Countryside? Still investigating those also? Don't hold your breath waiting for real results, I guess.... 

that was Max Baucus, another Democrat.  But the probability that Congress' ethics "investigations" will result in anything as long as the Dems are in charge is about equal to the odds that obama's justice dep't  would prosecute charges against Governor Richardson or the Blank Panthers.

This is why I hate that the party in power has so much leverage over what goes on, gets investigated, etc.