But he has friends in high places.
Posted on 10/24/2009 4:55:47 PM PDT by Libloather
Carter lapse won't slow Rangel hunt
By JOHN BRESNAHAN & JONATHAN ALLEN
10/23/09 4:38 AM EDT
House Republicans say they’ll press on with their efforts to dethrone House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel — despite the fact that the Republican leading their charge now faces ethical issues of his own.
Rep. John Carter failed to disclose nearly $300,000 in profits from oil stock sales in 2006-07, Roll Call reported Thursday.
Carter and the Republicans, though, insisted that they have no intention of backing off their anti-Rangel drive. They note that Carter had paid all the taxes on his stock transactions, while Rangel was forced to pay nearly $10,000 in back taxes for failing to report rental income on a vacation home in the Dominican Republic.
Republicans also noted that when Barack Obama was a senator, he failed to disclose $2,000 in capital gains from stock transactions in 2005.
“My understanding is that many members, including then-Sen. Barack Obama, have made a similar oversight,” said Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). “It does nothing to change the staggering array of charges facing Chairman Rangel or the speaker’s responsibility to force him to step aside.”
But Democrats crowed over the news about Carter’s misstep, saying it showed the hypocrisy of the GOP’s efforts to force Rangel to give up his Ways and Means gavel. The New York Democrat has been the subject of a yearlong probe by the House ethics committee over his personal finances, including his use of multiple rent-stabilized apartments in a Harlem building, the income from the Dominican home and his fundraising efforts for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York.
“It looks like there’s $300,000 worth of his own crap he left out of the witch hunt,” one Democratic leadership aide gleefully said of Carter.
Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), a big Rangel supporter, called the revelations about Carter “ironic.”
“I’m not filing [an ethics] complaint, but I can’t speak for others,” Crowley added.
When asked about Carter’s disclosure problems, Rangel paused, started to comment, then appeared to think better of it and declined to say anything more.
At issue is Carter’s sale of Exxon stock in 2006 and 2007. Carter made $199,000 in profits in the 2006 transaction and an additional $97,000 the following year.
The Texas Republican, a former state judge, didn’t include those capital gains on either of his financial disclosure forms for those years. While Carter amended his 2007 return in mid-2008 to include “capital gains,” he didn’t specify the amount earned through the stock sale, which meant there was no way for the public to know how much he made in the transaction.
Carter’s office made his federal tax returns available for both years in order to demonstrate that he had fully paid taxes on the capital gains.
“Congressman Carter properly reported his stock sales to the House and on his federal tax returns, paid his taxes on the capital gains from those sales but made the common error of not reporting the dollar amount of the capital gains on his House disclosures, which he will now amend,” said John Stone, Carter’s spokesman.
Stone also indicated that Carter won’t back off his attacks on Rangel, despite his disclosure lapse.
“Congressman Carter challenges House Ways and Means Chairman Rangel to open his federal tax returns to reporters for the years he has admitted errors on his House disclosures, in the same way that Congressman Carter did today,” Stone said.
A Republican leadership aide said that there’s “no question this helps Rangel in the short term. But I think you will see us go back to this resolution pretty soon. Carter is just going to have to push through it.”
Baraq?
Capital gains?
Stock transactions?
Do his marxist mentors know about this?
Rangel’s issue isn’t disclosure - it’s tax evasion and accepting bribes.
Rangel doesn’t just have ethics problems - he’s may be guilty of federal crimes.
Look out you evil antiamerican way democrats, Republicans are NOTING!!!!
DON’T LET THEM USE THE “SEE YOU DO IT TOO” DEFENSE - MAKE THEM BOTH PAY THE PRICE (ESPECIALLY OUR GUY WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER)
The Brainiac, Maxine Waters, said THEY ALL DO IT!! THROW THEM OUT!!
I’d like to know who came up with the info on Carter. Not payback, is it? Nah! They don’t play dirty. Not much anyway.
But he has friends in high places.
Isn't that special that Politico is neglecting to mention that Carter paid taxes, disclosed the sale, etc., while Rangel failed to report on his taxes his gains. Huge, huge difference!
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