by Benjamin J. Kirby
Well, it looks like thug Congressman Vern Buchanan has dodged one of the barrage of ethical bullets raining down in his general vicinity... sort of. For now.
The House Ethics Committee has dismissed a complaint against U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan that he knowingly did not report report all his holdings and income on personal financial disclosure reports.
In a bipartisan 9-0 vote, the committee found that Buchanan, R-Sarasota, "did not accurately report all of the positions or ownership interests he held with several entities on his financial disclosure statements for 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, and that he did not accurately report certain income received from those same entities in the same years," a news release from the committee states.
"However, the committee found no evidence that the errors were knowing or willful and unanimously determined that the errors were not substantively different from the hundreds or thousands of errors corrected by amendment at the requirement of the committee every year."
I bolded much of that second paragraph because, well, just look at it.
Far be it for me to disagree with the House Ethics Committee -- run by Republican Congressman Jo Bonner of Alabama -- but if you misreport your financial earnings and income four years in a row, it's willful. One year? Maybe two? That's a mistake. Four years in a row? Starting with the year you were sworn into office?
This is hardly the end of Vern's troubles, and it is hardly vindication.
There is still the grand jury, convened in Tampa. Who knows what we'll see from that. There is the FBI investigation, along with the ongoing IRS investigation. There are the calls to resign.
On top of it all, the whole world now knows of Vern Buchanan's deep-seated, willful corruption.
And as the article says, he's got a tough fight in front of him against Keith Fitzgerald.
Vern troubles are just beginning. If we're lucky, we can stop caring after November.
Comments