Hmmm: Rangel Paid $26K Fine to NYC For ... Well, He's Not Saying

You've got to love all this transparency washing over America, enveloping us with the kind of good government and openness we've all been clamoring for. Makes you wonder what those crazy Tea Partiers are all upset about. I mean, it's not as if some high-ranking Democrat secretly pays a fine three months ago and we only find out about it now. And he refuses to say what the fine was for.

In the latest mess involving Rep. Charlie Rangel’s (D) finances, the former Ways and Means chairman’s campaign committee paid $26,000 in fines to New York City on Jan. 19.

What could possibly lead to such a massive sum? Rangel’s office isn’t saying.

“These payments were made in full compliance with FEC rules,” said a spokesman for Rangel, who declined to comment further.

Rangel’s campaign finance report merely lists the payment as being for “fines.”

Rangel, who gave up his Ways and Means gavel last month, faces a host of ethical troubles, including inquiries into his procurement of multiple rent-stabilized apartments in New York.

Rangel gave up one of those apartments, which he used as a campaign office, in 2008 following stories in the New York Times.

The veteran lawmaker has paid parking tickets out of his campaign account in the past, but those payments were for much smaller amounts.

H/T Spitfire Murphy.

Well, could it be related to his failure to report rental income?

Rangel is being investigated on multiple issues by the House Ethics Committee, including failure to report income from properties he owns in New York and the Dominican Republic. A company that gave $1 million to a New York school facility that will bear Rangel's name subsequently received lucrative tax breaks, and he has reportedly solicited political contributions on official stationary. Rangel has been admonished by the House Ethics Committee and forced to give up his Ways and Means Committee chairmanship.

For the first quarter of 2010 Rangel has already spent $58,000 on legal fees.

I'd love to have a look at his tax filing. He did files his taxes, right?

Ironically, Rangel recently sent out a mailer, at taxpayer expense, of course, offering (ahem) tax advice to his constituents.

The congressman, who helped write the U.S. tax code - only to break it himself - mailed a tax-season flyer to constituents.

"Hopefully, the information in this guide can help put money back into your pockets," Rangel says in the glossy, full-color mailbox-stuffer.

Or take it from their pockets.

"This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense," it says.

Rangel's office could not provide figures on the size of the mailing or its cost.

A slew of ethics questions about the 20-term Harlem congressman recently led him to step down - rather than be forced out - as chairman of the tax-overseeing Ways and Means Committee.

Rangel's tax problems have included failing to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income from a vacation villa in the Dominican Republic.

Residents of his district, which covers Harlem and part of the upper West Side, know chutzpah when they see it.

"Well, I think if anyone is going to tell you how to pay - or not pay - taxes, he's your guy," chuckled retiree Ed Hanft, 85. "It's too much of a reminder to his constituents as to what he did. He shouldn't talk about taxes at all."

Reno Brown, 89, agreed. "I'd never take tax advice from that guy," Brown told the Daily News.

"It's probably not the best time to put something like that out," observed Keisha Jones, 40.