Charlie Rangel Gets Caught Failing To Report A Free Trip (Again)

The most corrupt man in Congress is at it again. Charlie Rangel who has an impressive list of ethics violations including accepting and failing to report improper trips to the Caribbean that were improperly funded by corporate donors got caught failing to report another trip.

As reported by the National Journal:

The 84-year-old New York Democrat joined a 10-lawmaker delegation from the Congressional Black Caucus for a weeklong China trip last August. Seven of the other lawmakers on the trip listed it on their annual financial-disclosure forms, made public earlier this month. The two other attendees, Reps. Gregory Meeks and Sheila Jackson Lee, have not yet filed their reports, after asking for extensions. Only Rangel has failed to report the trip.

The NY Daily News asked Rangel's office about the report:

Rangel spokeswoman Hannah Kim said Rangel asked his accountants to immediately amend his financial disclosure form to report the trip after National Journal first reported his failure to report the trip Thursday.

This is just one more ethics violation in Rep. Rangel's long record:

• He admitted a failure to report $75 thousand in taxes on a vacation property

• He was discovered taking a tax break for people whose primary residence was in Washington DC, but if his primary residence was in DC he couldn't be congressman representing NYC. And besides, he was occupying four rent controlled controlled apartments in New York, the rule is you don't qualify for rent control unless the apartment is your primary residence. That is why he got in trouble for using one of the apartments as his office.

• There was the $1.95 million, federal earmark funded Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service this one was legal but just as smelly.

• He misused his congressional office to fund raise for his private Rangel Center by preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for a donation to his vanity Charles B. Rangel center.

• Then there was the investigation of the NY Congressman, revolving around a Caribbean boondoggle.

• Once the ethics investigation began Rangel gave campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him.

Then there is the matter of his financial disclosure form. Lets just say it had some mistakes also:

And there was more. Rangel was censured on the House floor in December 2010 after the ethics panel found him guilty of 11 charges related to his conduct outside the Capitol. The vote against him was a lopsided 333-79 (that might have been the last bi-partisan vote in the House).