After a year's worth of pressure from Congressman John Carter (R-TX), the U.S. House Ethics Committee has announced it is expanding the scope of its investigation against Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), the committee announced today.

"Clearly, this investigation is far from over and we still see this as a dark cloud over Mr. Rangel's head," Carter said. "We'll continue to ask that he step down from his position until the investigation is complete and pressure Speaker Nancy Pelosi to do the right thing."

On Wednesday, Congressman Carter delivered an up-or-down vote on the House Floor calling for Mr. Rangel to step down from his position as Chairman of the powerful Ways & Means Committee, where he oversees writing the tax code.

"Someone with confessed tax writing mistakes shouldn't be in charge of the tax-writing committee, especially while he is under investigation," Carter said.

Mr. Rangel has repeatedly failed to reveal financial assets, and has failed to pay taxes on income. This expansion of the investigation will include his failure to report at least $500,000 in assets, which was revealed in August.

According to the Ethics Committee, the investigation to date has issued nearly 150 subpoenas, interviewed 34 witnesses resulting in more than 2,100 pages of transcripts, reviewed more than 12,000 pages of documents and held more than 30 subcommittee meetings.