Opinion

ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER RANGEL PROBE

The House Ethics Committee has opened an investigation into free Caribbean trips by Rep. Charles Rangel and several other members of Congress that were paid for by corporate lobbyists, in apparent violation of House rules.

What took so long? The committee waited more than nine months after the trips were first disclosed by The Post’s Isabel Vincent.

Not that the committee will ever do more than slap Rangel’s wrist — if that.

But Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared last fall that the initial probe into Rangel’s tortured personal finances would be finished by time the 111th Congress convened. Oops: That happened in January, yet the investigation’s far from being finished.

At any rate, the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as it’s officially known, announced that an investigative subcommittee, armed with subpoena power, will look into the trips.

As The Post reported, Rangel for nearly a decade has enjoyed free trips to luxurious Caribbean destinations paid for by corporate lobbyists who bundled their sponsorships through a small, New York-based weekly newspaper.

The paper’s owner has bragged on his radio show that the trips are effective ways for lobbyists to gain access to powerful legislators like Rangel, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.

But though he listed the trips on his financial disclosure forms, Rangel didn’t reveal the corporate financing — nor did he get advance permission to take the trips, as required since 2007.

Still, what does it matter if these investigations will never be concluded?

Thus far, Rangel’s fellow Democrats have rebuffed GOP demands that he temporarily relinquish the chairmanship of Congress’ key tax-writing committee while he’s under investigation.

But then, Charlie Rangel has always been better at writing tax laws than obeying them.