article_snippet: In 2007, the Senate Finance Committee, under the chairmanship of Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, launched an investigation into the financial practices of six televangelists, including Dollar.
article_snippet: More than three years later, after an outcry from the televangelists, most visibly Dollar's mentor Kenneth Copeland, the Senate Finance Committee opted to abandon the Senate Finance Committee efforts to instigate any sort of regulatory changes.
article_snippet: Instead, the Senate Finance Committee called on the ministries to engage in "self-reform," even though the committee staff's findings plainly demonstrated that four of the ministries, including Dollar's, were unwilling to engage in any sort of meaningful transparency or accountability.
article_snippet: Of the six televangelists from whom the Senate Finance Committee sought financial data, Dollar was deemed the "least cooperative.
article_snippet: Without Dollar's cooperation, the Senate Finance Committee was left to piece together a puzzle about his finances through public documents, third parties and news reports.
article_snippet: Precisely because of Dollar's lack of cooperation, the committee staff concluded, "we are unable to determine whether and the extent to which the committee staff are reporting and paying taxes on income earned in those entities.
article_snippet: Four years after the abandonment of the Senate Finance Committee's televangelist investigation, it looks like the absence of government oversight has only emboldened Creflo Dollar.
highlights_snippet: Posner: Senate committee took up this issue but dropped this issue; this seems to have emboldened Televangelist Creflo Dollar .