Was Chris Dodd's "cottage industry" a payoff?

The Hartford Courant's Kevin Rennie is back on the case of Chris Dodd and his more and more bizarre real estate transactions

Rennie brings up more evidence that Dodd received a huge windfall gain on his Irish vacation cottage; received right after he successfully lobbied former President Bill Clinton for one of his infamous "midnight pardons". 

  In 2002, long into a historic Irish property value boom and the year after Dodd got Downe pardoned, Kessinger sold Dodd his share in the lair for only $15,000 more than the $107,000 he'd paid in 1994

Now who is Edward Downe Jr.? .  Well we already knew he was the Bear Stearns principal convicted in the early 1990's for insider trading and ordered to pay an  $11 million fine

Now, Rennie finds out that Downe and Dodd went in on a condo deal in Washington, DC in the 1980's

When Dodd owned a condominium with Downe in the 1980s, while Downe was carrying on his illegal stock scheme, no details of their arrangement were in the deed or mortgage filings.Who paid which expenses associated with owning the condominium didn't fall into the public's view. Neither did who used the condominium 

The rather clear inference is that Downe paid the bills and Dodd used the condo. While the statute of limitations on tax evasion has long passed, it does appear that Dodd received an appreciable amount of imputed income from a grifter whom he later got pardoned by the President. And I greatly doubt he declared this on his 1040's

Rennie concluded:

A presidential pardon is a rare possession, especially when the man pardoned, Downe, still owed millions to the Securities and Exchange Commission for his violations. Rarer still, however, is the real estate developer, like Kessinger, who appears to have left hundreds of thousands of dollars in appreciated value on the table for his minority-share partner. Dodd appears to have latched onto one — and, on paper, has turned a profit like the Wall Street pirates he once loved but now disdains.

One more time.  Why IS Chris Dodd Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee?