Dozens of New Tax Errors Revealed, Rangel Blames Press

For the latter half of Charles Rangel's adult life, he's averaged just about one omission a year when filing his taxes. A private government ethics group reported to the ongoing House investigation on Rangel yesterday disclosed their discovery that Rangel has failed to account for more than $239,000 in assets over the last 30 years. He has listed many assets over the years without disclosing when he acquired them.

The Sunlight Foundation found 28 separate instances where he failed to report acquiring, owning or disposing of assets. He also did not list any royalties or advances he may have received from his 2007 book prematurely titled “And I Haven’t Had a Bad Day Since.”

Yesterday Republican Congressman offered a privileged resolution calling on Rangel to step down from his chairmanship until the House ethics committee completes its investigation into his financial dealings. Politico says that Republicans are trying to use momentum from the Tom Daschle debacle to poke Rangel once again.

Meanwhile Rangel was on the offensive this week, charging back against the ongoing smearing of his name by questioning the journalistic intergrity of the newspaper who has led the campaign against him, the New York Post. Rangel, who previously called out the Times for ignoring facts regarding his recent scandals, says that two investigations that led to reports in the Post came from investigations by the conservative-oriented National Legal Policy Center (as opposed to the conservative-oriented New York Post).

Rangel said, “Newspapers forwent actual, independent reporting, and instead relied on this organization to do the dirty work for them." The NLPS denied that any help they offered the Post was part of any orchestrated campaign to attack Mr. Rangel. And in covering Rangel's latest tax snafus today, the Post chose to ignore the angle altogether.