On Thursday, the House Ethics Committee expanded its probe into Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel’s shady personal financial record. Are members finally feeling some heat?

Following up on reports by The Post in July, the panel vowed to examine Rangel’s failure to note — until this summer — millions in outside income, business transactions and other assets on his financial disclosure forms.

The news came barely 24 hours after Republicans pushed a resolution to suspend Rangel’s role as chairman, pending the outcome of the panel’s year-long-plus probe. House Democrats, in effect, killed that bill to protect Rangel — but wound up embarrassing themselves.

Indeed, even the left-leaning New York Times found it “hard to blame” Republicans for claiming that the Dems’ action “held the House up to public ridicule.”

The paper accused Speaker Nancy Pelosi of doing the nation “no favor” by shielding Rangel’s “serial ethical messes.” And it challenged Dems to prove that “someone in that august body has ethical standards.” Imagine that.

The right thing, of course, would be for Pelosi & Co. to ask Rangel to step aside until the probe is done. That could restore some degree of public confidence in Congress’ ethical standards.

And if the probe eventually proves him blameless for any lapses (a seeming impossibility, given his own admissions), Pelosi could restore his chairmanship.

In widening its scope, after all, the panel may now need even more time. It says it’s already issued some 150 subpoenas, interviewed 34 witnesses, produced 2,100 pages of transcripts, analyzed 12,000 documents and held 30 meetings.

We’ll take that as a sign of its seriousness. All the more reason for Pelosi to act now.