WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is hunkered down behind her most powerful chairman, Charles Rangel, amid new revelations about his failure to report millions of dollars in assets, income and business transactions.
She says she is waiting for the House Ethics Committee to complete its wide-ranging investigation of the Ways and Means Committee boss.
But Republicans are not waiting.
“She can’t bring herself to do what she knows is right,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told The Post yesterday.
Republicans plan to force votes in Congress that will make vulnerable Democrats facing tight races to side with or against Rangel.
Every vote with Rangel will become an instant campaign ad back home.
When Pelosi maneuvered her historic House takeover three years ago, she did not win on some legislative mandate.
The reason Democrats won is because they were not Republicans. Republicans had become embroiled in so many disgraceful scandals that they proved themselves entirely unworthy of public trust or authority.
Pelosi promised this would be “the most ethical Congress ever.”
Instead, Pelosi installed Rangel at the most important and powerful intersection between people and their federal government.
He is chairman of the committee that writes all taxation legislation, determining every penny that the government takes out of your paycheck.
“Such flagrant fuzzy math and dubious excuses would land most people in serious legal trouble,” Issa said.
“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.”