WASHINGTON. D.C. – House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member and Judiciary Committee Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) issued the following statement after the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct voted unanimously to expand the scope of its investigation of House Ways & Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY):

“If you don’t drain the swamp, you’ll end up with a lake.  This isn’t an isolated incident – it’s a pattern-of-behavior.  If the Chairman of the Committee charged with writing our tax laws didn’t know he should be reporting assets and income received from property and rent, then he’s criminally negligent.  If he did know it and failed to do so anyway, then he’s just plain criminal.

“These aren’t rounding errors – these are errors of judgment and smack of serial tax evasion.  Is he really the right person to be heading up tax policy for America when so many times you failed to pay your taxes or disclose income?  Were these mistakes limited to Congressional disclosure forms or did Chairman Rangel file false tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service?  Only Chairman Rangel can answer that question by releasing his full tax history.  Such flagrant fuzzy math and dubious excuses would land most people in serious legal trouble.  The public needs to know if the man we count on to write America’s tax laws can actually count and does, in fact, pay taxes.”

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