U.S. Sen. Bob Corker blames “technical errors” by his former accounting firm for the failure to properly disclose millions of dollars in income from real estate and other investments since he entered the Senate nearly nine years ago, reports the News Sentinel.

The Chattanooga Republican filed a series of amendments to his financial disclosure statements late Friday to correct the omissions and sent a letter to the secretary of the Senate acknowledging the errors.

“I am extremely disappointed in the filing errors that were made in earlier financial disclosure reports, and after completing a full, third-party review, we have corrected this oversight,” the senator said in a statement released by his office.

A government watchdog group that filed a complaint against Corker last month over other omissions on his financial disclosure forms said it intended to file another complaint asking the Senate Ethics Committee and the Justice Department to investigate the latest revelations.

“Sen. Corker’s amendments raise additional questions: Why didn’t he disclose this information earlier and was he trying to hide something?” said Anne Weismann, executive director of the Campaign for Accountability. “Knowingly failing to disclose assets on the forms can be a federal crime.”



Corker’s office said the newly discovered omissions were found during an audit by a separate CPA that Corker hired after questions about his financial disclosure statements first surfaced in November. The CPA conducted a complete review of all of Corker’s financial statements since he entered the Senate almost nine years ago.

According to the paper, Corker failed to properly disclose at least $2 million in income from investments in three small hedge funds based in Tennessee.

Corker’s report for 2014 didn’t include a gain of between $304,000 and $1.4 million in the Memphis-based hedge fund Gerber/Taylor. In 2013, the senator failed to disclose a gain of between $100,001 and $1 million in the hedge fund TSW II in Chattanooga. And in 2012, he made a gain of $1.2 million in Pointer (QP) LP, also based in Chattanooga, though his previous statement reported income of $100,001 to $1 million from the hedge fund, the paper said.

Corker also failed to disclose a 2014 investment in Gerber/Taylor of between $500,001 and $1 million and a 2013 investment in Pointer of between $1 million and $5 million.

In addition, Corker didn’t properly report millions of dollars in income from commercial real-estate investments due to an accounting error and failed to disclose millions of dollars in other assets and income from other financial transactions, the Journal said.

The latest revelations were first reported Sunday by The Wall Street Journal.

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Note: This expands and replaces an earlier post.