Following up on last week's post on the Senate Finance Committee's considerations of the nomination of Lael Brainard to be Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs:

• Wall Street Journal, Another Nominee’s Tax Troubles Irk Sen. Grassley:

Sen. Charles Grassley expressed exasperation over another Obama nominee’s tax problems. “We do not need anyone so badly in the federal government that we allow them to live by their own set of rules,” Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee said today at the confirmation hearing for Lael Brainard, who is up for Treasury undersecretary for international affairs.

The lapses? Late payments of property taxes, questions about her claim of a home-office deduction, and some glitches on tax forms for domestic employees, all detailed in a five-page report from Finance Committee aides. …

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.), supports Brainard, and she is seen likely to be confirmed.

Grassley, meantime, slammed critics who have implied he is using the committee tax vetting process to stall Obama nominees. He said Finance Committee standards haven’t changed but the Obama administration has encouraged nominees with checkered tax histories to go forward rather than withdrawing their nominations.

• Wall Street Journal, Grassley Declines to Make Personal Tax Returns Public:

Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) Friday refused a request from Dow Jones to release his personal tax returns.

Sen. Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has criticized several Obama administration nominees who failed to pay taxes or to pay them on time. …

Sen. Grassley lashed out at the Obama White House, saying nominees during previous administrations that had checkered tax histories often withdrew from consideration. He said he is frustrated that nominees like Mr. Geithner and Ms. Brainard have proceeded with support from Democrats, despite their documented tax problems. “I’m not sure if it’s worth our time, or our staffs time to be asking these questions anymore,” Sen. Grassley said.

• New York Times, A Taxing Time for Treasury Nominee:

It’s one thing to carefully vet people being nominated to a top post at the Treasury, especially to make sure they’ve properly paid their taxes. But the six-month investigation that the Senate Finance Committee just completed on Lael Brainard is likely to make even the most persnickety believers in crossed-T’s run for the hills. …

Ms. Brainard’s ordeal had Kafkaesque qualities. For one thing, her husband – Kurt Campbell – sailed through his own confirmation for a top post at the State Department. The difference? Mr. Campbell went through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (They file joint returns.)

No issue seemed too small for the Finance Committee to investigate and reinvestigate. …

“The dollar amounts involved aren’t large compared to some other administration nominees this year,’’ acknowledged Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the committee’s ranking Republican. “But the lack of candor, accuracy and timeliness in addressing the issues has been discouraging.”

Politico, Senate Vetters Dig Deep:

The scrutiny is just one more example of the pitched Washington personnel battles that go on in an age of micro-vetting – one of the reasons why it has taken the Obama administration so long to get fully staffed.

But the reason all this took eight months is in hot dispute. Brainard’s camp says the Senate vetters were obsessed with minutia that has nothing to do with her qualifications. “Ms. Brainard has always paid her taxes, has never been asked to amend their tax returns, and there is nothing in the record that in any way could be considered to call into question her qualifications or ability to carry out the duties of this position,” said Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams, who urged the Senate to confirm her.

A Senate source, on the other hand, says “it took so long because we were not able to get clear consistent answers from the nominee.” The Senate source says Brainard provided several different answers to the same questions over the course of 10 rounds of back and forth with the committee. “We’re not trying to play ‘gotcha’ with this stuff, we’re just trying to determine what’s actually real. We’ve got other things to do up here,” this source said.

The Senate source said the most concerning aspect of the vetting was Brainard’s answer of “yes” to a question on a standard tax form given to all nominees. The question read, “Were all your Federal, State, local, and other tax returns and tax liabilities current (filed and paid) as of the date of your nomination. If not, provide details.”

But it turned out that Brainerd and her husband, Kurt Campbell (who was confirmed by the Senate to be assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs in June) had not yet paid property taxes on their property in Rappahannock, and didn’t pay them until September – ten months late. A committee report noted that Brainard said she had been unaware of the oversight at the time she filled out the nomination form.