Oops...Treasury Nominee Timothy Geithner Didn't Pay Taxes, Hired Illegal Immigrant House Keeper

From The Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- Timothy Geithner didn't pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for several years while he worked for the International Monetary Fund, and he employed an immigrant housekeeper who briefly lacked proper work papers.



Those issues, and a series of other tax matters, caused the postponement Tuesday of Mr. Geithner's confirmation hearing as Treasury secretary. They were instead the subject of a closed-door meeting between the nominee, currently president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and members of the Senate Finance Committee, in whose hands his confirmation lies.


Several senators said after the meeting that they intended to remain supporters of Mr. Geithner, who has playing a central role in tackling the financial crisis. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) called the issue serious, but not disqualifying.


"I still support him," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) as he emerged from the meeting. "He's a very competent guy."


Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the committee's senior Republican, did not give Mr. Geithner a pass. "It's serious, and whether or not it's disqualifying is to be determined," Mr. Grassley said after the meeting. Similar issues have derailed other candidates for high office in the past.

Obama aides said they didn't think these issues would present a problem, given what they characterized as the minor nature of the infractions and the gravity of the role Mr. Geithner has been nominated to take. Mr. Geithner's "service should not be tarnished by honest mistakes, which, upon learning of them, he quickly addressed," Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement.

Why would it be an issue to Obama? Other things were not an issue either like Rezko, Rev. Wright, Blago, Bill Ayers...

More from WaPo:

Treasury Secretary-designee Tim Geithner, the man charged with turning around the worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression, made more than $40,000 worth of mistakes on his tax returns from 2001-04 -- returns that he prepared himself.


The Internal Revenue Service is a branch of Treasury.


Geithner met this afternoon with bipartisan members of the Senate Finance committee to explain why he failed to initially pay self-employment taxes in 2001 and 2002 and why he employed an immigrant as a housekeeper whose working papers had expired shortly before she left her job, The Post's Lori Montgomery reports.

Anyone surprised by this? Seriously, does Obama do any vetting? Anyone figure out yet that the Messiah makes bad people decisions?

For more on Geithner, read this.