Senators get their own cell phone towers installed, don’t pay for it. Rep. Tim Mahoney continues to sink in yet another installment in “When Sleeping Around Goes Wrong.” Rep. Rick Renzi tries to get the 35 criminal counts against him dismissed. This is today’s news:

The Washington Post released an excellent investigative piece showing that Verizon and AT&T were both working to install cell phone towers to provide service for Sen. John McCain’s Sedona, AZ ranch beginning last year, at a time when McCain’s presidential hopes seemed dim. Sen. McCain sits on the Senate Commerce Committee and the installation of free cell phone towers by corporations under the oversight of that same committee certainly counts as a conflict of interest. Also troubling is the ability of the McCain’s to hide this seeming in-kind contribution from their personal financial disclosures because it was ostensibly made at the request of Sen. McCain’s wife, Cindy. The Senator and his wife keep their finances separate and thus he does not have to fully disclose her financial activities on his annual personal financial disclosure. While the two telecommunications giants eventually abandonded the idea of permanently installing towers, they both provide portable towers at no-cost to the Senator’s ranch.

Rep. Rick Renzi, under indictment on 35 counts related to a land swap, accused the government of taping conversations with other members of Congress and bringing the corruption indictment against him for political reasons. Renzi also filed for a dismissal of the charges against him on the grounds that they violate the Speech and Debate Clause. Renzi is under indictment for allegedly using his position in Congress to push through a land swap that eventually netted him $700,000. Apparently, the congressman abides by the motto of the William Jefferson school of congressional corruption, “If you do it in an official capacity, they can’t investigate.” I don’t think that the Speech and Debate Clause was enacted as a way to make congressional offices into corruption safe rooms.

In worsening news for Rep. Tim Mahoney, an FBI investigation into his affairs is expanding to include the second affair with a high level county official, which Mahoney admitted to today, to determine whether he steered federal emergency funds to her county. An aide close to his campaign also announced that Rep. Mahoney may not seek reelection. If this is the case, all replacements should quickly be vetted to make sure that they don’t carry on the Foley-Mahoney curse.

1 Comment

Congressman Rick Renzi was indicted today for a land swap in his state of Arizona. The Politico’s Ben Smith reports:

Republican Rep. Rick Renzi of Arizona was indicted Friday morning on charges connected to a land deal in his home state, according to the Associated Press.

The indictment comes one day after Renzi, who had already announced his intentions to step down from Congress at the end of the year, buried his father, Army Maj. Gen. Eugene Carmen Renzi.

For more on the background of the investigation into Renzi read this section of his Congresspedia page.

View the indictment here. (via CREW) 

0 Comments

Tomorrow is the big press day for this story as the House and the Senate will hold hearings into the alleged Attorney purge and look into what role, if any, politics and pressure from congressmen led to the ouster of seven U.S. Attorneys. Two of these Attorneys have already generated a large amount of media attention as their removal is highly controversial. David Iglesias claims that Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep Heather Wilson pressured him to bring an indictment against local New Mexico Democrats prior to the 2006 election and Carol Lam was in the midst of prosecuting two alleged conspirators in the Duke Cunningham corruption case, Brent Wilkes and K. Dusty Foggo, both highly connected to the Bush Administration. What about the other Attorneys?

One that caught my eye was Paul Charlton, U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona. In October it was revealed that Charlton was investigating Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) for multiple alleged corrupt practices. There was even a strong rumor that an indictment was in the pipeline. Now, Charlton is being removed from his position.

Bud Cummins, the Attorney for the District of Arkansas, states that he was told he was being removed to pave the way for a protégé of Karl Rove, Tim Griffin, who has since decided not to pursue the permanent position. Cummins had also been investigating the office of Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, the son of then-Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO).  John McKay’s removal as Attorney for the District of Washington is incredibly puzzling as he received a glowing personnel review prior to his ouster.

Daniel Bogden is perhaps the only Attorney who may have been removed for performance issues after he saw a number of high profile cases collapse.

There is also a whole lot more news in the case of Domenici and Iglesias:

• According to Paul Kiel, Domenici claims that he was frustrated at Iglesias’ “inability” to “move more quickly on cases” despite the fact that Iglesias was “opening more cases and handling them faster than his predecessor”.

• The six purged Attorneys subpoenaed to testify tomorrow released a joint statement today. You can read it here.

• The Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys at the Justice Department Michael Battle announced that he was resigning today, effective March 16^th. Battle was the Justice Department Official who informed each of the fired Attorneys that they were out of a job. DOJ is saying that Battle did not make the decision to fire.

• CREW filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM).

• And a small piece of information that caught my eye was that David Iglesias, the fired Attorney from New Mexico, was the basis for the Tom Cruise character in the film “A Few Good Men.” Another fired prosecutor, Carol Lam, had recently prosecuted the case of Duke Cunningham, the basis for the Tom Cruise character in “Top Gun.” Weird.

Watch the hearings tomorrow if you want. Or check back here (and TPM) during the day for updates.

0 Comments

We’ve already got two separate items linked on the reported investigations of Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz. One concerns his involvement in a land swap deal that made a $3 million profit for James Sandlin, a a real estate investor who’d bought half of a business owned by Renzi for $200,000 in 2001 (Sandlin would later buy the rest for somewhere between $1,000,001 and $5 million). The second story notes an inquiry into Renzi’s influence on behalf of a government contractor, Mantech International, of which his father is an executive vice president.

The Sandlin inquiry is particularly interesting; Justin Rood has much more on it at TPM Muckraker (with the story advanced further here). What I find interesting is the extent to which the Sandlin-Renzi relationship helped the latter in his first campaign for Congress in 2002. The Federal Election Commission audited Renzi’s 2002 campaign committee, Rick Renzi for Congress, and found that the candidate had loaned more than $760,000 to his own coffers–by far the single greatest source of funds. Among the money that Renzi said that he loaned to his 2002 effort was the $200,000 raised by selling half of Renzi Investments Inc. (later renamed Fountain Realty & Development, Inc.) to Sandlin. In its investigation of the matter, the FEC focused on the narrow, somewhat snooze-inducing issue of who owned the $200,000 (and other money) that Renzi transferred to his campaign: Was this personal money, or were these contributions from Renzi Investments Inc., a Subchapter S Corpoartion (and thus barred, under federal election law, from contributing to a campaign). From the FEC Audit Report:

Although [Rick Renzi for Congress] representatives indicated that the sale of 50% of the Candidate’s interest in Fountain Realty & Development, Inc. was a source of funds for some of the loans, the documentation available at that time did not support that representation. …Bank records for the Candidate, Renzi & Co. Inc. and Fountain Realty & Development, Inc. were provided only for December 2001, and did not establish how and when the proceeds of the sale were received by the Candidate. Other documents detailed the sale of the interest to two individuals; however, no information concerning how the purchase price was determined was provided.

At the exit conference, the Audit staff presented this matter to RRFC representatives. They maintained that the funds in question were generated through the sale of various business asstes. They argued that these busines entities were owned soley or in majority by the Candidate; therefore, profits from the sale of these business assets, were funds of the Candidate.

It would be interesting to see how the purchase price was determined (there may well be documents the FEC didn’t see), especially since, as the audit report suggests, Renzi’s campaign maintained it was raising funds by the sale of business assets. It’s also worth noting what the FEC found as they investigated these transactions:

During this process, [Rick Renzi for Congress] representatives revised their characterization of the source of the Candidate’s funds for many of these transactions. Many of the transactions previously described as “distributions” from the subchapter S corporations or “proceeds” from the sale of business assets are now characterized as loan repayments to the Candidate. This evolving characterization of the source of the funds necessitated the Audit staff’s request for additional documentation.

And people doubt that evolution is an ongoing process…

0 Comments