inquiry

The following dembot senators were very active in the check bouncing scandal in 1992 i.e. kiting many checks in the House:

(up)Chuck Schumer Barbara (dumb as a) Boxer (rocks) Ron Wyden Dick(head) Durbin Jack Reed Bernie Sanders (for the upcoming election)

I have been searching for information about their involvement in this. Hey lets hobble their asses with outside charges like they do us. I know Boxer was in the top 10.

Adding my notes on McCain/Keating 5

"While Sen. John McCain's wife and father-in-law were investing with Charles H. Keating, Jr. in a shopping center, McCain was helping Keating battle federal regulators who questioned his operation of Lincoln Savings and Loan . . . [photo caption] Documents show that Sen. John McCain's wife, Cindy, and father-in-law, James W. Hensley (second from right) are the largest investors in Fountain Square Shopping Center. Their partnership is managed by subsidiaries of American Continental Corp., run by Charles H. Keating, Jr. (right). But John McCain contends there was no conflict in his helping Keating battle federal regulators."
The Arizona Republic - October 8, 1989

"Sen. John McCain had more than a constituent relationship with Charles H. Keating, Jr. prior to 1987 . . . the McCains - sometimes with their daughter and baby sitter - made at least nine trips at Keating's expense from August 1984 to August 1986 aboard either Keating's American Continental Corporation's jet or chartered planes and helicopters owned by Resorts International. Three of the trips were for vacations at Keating's luxurious retreat in the Bahamas." The Arizona Republic - October 8, 1989

"McCain, in a radio talk-show appearance last week condemned disclosures of his family's ties to Keating as "irresponsible journalism."
The Arizona Republic - October 17, 1989

" . . . both in telephone conversations with reporters and on a live radio talk show, the Republican senator was far from calm. He was agitated. Angry. And the way he dealt with unpleasant questions was to bully the questioners . . . 'You're a liar,' McCain snapped Sept. 29 when an Arizona Republic reporter asked him about business ties between his wife, Cindy McCain, and Keating . . . 'That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot,' McCain sneered later in the same conversation. 'You do understand English, don't you?' ". . . Not content with just bullying reporters, McCain tried belittling them: 'It's up to you to find that out, kids.' . . . McCain wasn't talking to liars. He wasn't talking to juveniles. The senator was talking to two reporters."
The Arizona Republic - October 17, 1989

"Employees at Hensley & Co., a $100 million Anheuser-Busch distribution firm, also say that during McCain's first campaign for Congress, some workers were pressured into going door-to-door in neighborhoods to hand out McCain election pamphlets . . . Hensley employees say they must take the checks to work, where they are collected by supervisors. I asked one person if employees were assured that all contributions were voluntary . . . 'no way,' I was told. 'And my (spouse) and I aren't even registered (to vote). That's what makes us so mad."
The Arizona Republic - November 1, 1989

"As a 100 percent, service-connected, disabled ex-prisoner of war, I sought help from John McCain when he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and I needed help in regard to a claim for back service-connected disability compensation. I did so because I thought that as an ex-POW himself he could relate to my problem. When I could not reach him via letters to his office, I wrote to his home address. That was a very enlightening experience . . . my letter, addressed to the congressman, was opened by his wife, Cindy. She didn't like what she read, so she wrote me a nasty letter. Apparently John McCain isn't even capable of communicating on a one-to-one basis with someone who was a POW and returned from his experience in far worse physical condition than John McCain returned from his experience . . . M. "Shane" Schoenborn."
The Phoenix Gazette - November 4, 1989

"Reporters also 'discovered' that the senator's wife and father-in-law invested $359,100.00 in one of Mr. Keating's projects in 1986 . . ."
The Phoenix Gazette - November 13, 1989

"The liquor case is particularly intriguing as it resulted in criminal charges against Marley's subordinates, James and Eugene Hensley. If the last name sounds familiar, it's because James is papa to Cindy McCain, who is wife of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is infamous lately as a member of the Keating Five . . . Marley also has been a shadow figure in the 1976 slaying of Republic reporter Don Bolles. Bolles wrote extensively about Marley's lucky past. And about how the Hensleys (Marley's managers) bought Ruidso Downs racing track in New Mexico. He wrote about Eugene Hensley spending five years in federal prison for a skimming scam. And about the Hensleys selling their track to a buyer linked with Emprise Corp. And about Marley's liquor ties with Emprise . . . one of Bolles' final dispatches appeared as Marley was about to become a member of the Arizona Racing Commission - the agency that regulates racetracks, including those run at the time by Emprise . . . the story dispatched Marley's appointment. Two months later, a car bomb killed Bolles." The Phoenix Gazette - January 4, 1990

"Bradley J. Funk, an antique dealer linked to the 13-year-old Don Bolles murder case through his family's former ownership of dog-racing tracks, has died of a heart attack, authorities said Jan. 2 . . . Bolles, 47, a former investigative reporter with the Arizona Republic, died June 13, 1976, about 11 days after a dynamite-based bomb blew up beneath his car . . . in his last statement before lapsing into unconsciousness, he mentioned the Mafia, John Adamson and Emprise Corp., a Buffalo, N.Y. company with a far-flung sports empire which once included ownership of the Boston Bruins hockey team and the former Cincinnati Royals basketball franchise . . . now known as Delaware North Cos., Emprise was convicted in 1972 of a federal charge of conspiring to hide Mafia interest in a Las Vegas, Nev., casino . . . Emprise and the Funk family were partners in six dog-racing tracks in the state and the Prescott Downs horse track, and Bolles had ripped their operations in print."
Arizona Business Gazette - January 5, 1990

"McCain's involvement with Keating . . . when reporters called him with questions last year about previously unknown ties to Keating, an investment by wife Cindy McCain in a Keating shopping center and trips to Keating's Bahamas home, McCain went into a rage."
The Arizona Republic - April 29, 1990

"Cars, homes and bank accounts of 18 people, including eight state legislators, were confiscated in a civil racketeering lawsuit that paints a portrait of lawmakers eager to sell their influence for as little as $660 and as much as $750,000 . . . Richard Scheffel, another lobbyist indicted but not targeted in the civil racketeering suit, is reputed to have been paid $20,000 to identify and approach lawmakers interested in trading votes for money . . . in a bid to establish his professional credentials with Stedino, Scheffel is reported to have boasted that '(U.S.) Sen. John McCain's father-in-law gives money to politicians through him' . . . Bauer, in his report, said Scheffel claimed that 'each January he receives $30,000 from the local Anheuser-Busch distributor, Jim Hensley,' adding that Hensley also supplied him with names of people to list as contributors."
The Phoenix Gazette - February 6, 1991

". . . Bob Delgado, executive vice president for Hensley. He also pointed out that Scheffel was a lobbyist for Anheuser-Busch Inc. and not Hensley & Co . . . Hensley & Co. has a pattern, according to state campaign filings, of registering key executives as lobbyists."
The Phoenix Gazette - February 9, 1991

"Hensley & Co., a Phoenix-based beer distributor, rewards its drivers and sales people with parties at Phoenix Greyhound Park . . . 'It's been an excellent motivator for us to use for incentive contests,' said Dave Daulton, assistant vice president at Hensley."
The Arizona Republic - February 15, 1991

"Don't overlook that multifaceted beer distributor Jim Hensley, father-in-law to Republican Sen. John McCain of modest Keating fame. According to current AzScam records, Hensley is a financial godfather to hosts of lobbyists."
The Phoenix Gazette - March 16, 1991

"McCain, meanwhile, reported assets of more than $5.4 million, much of it held jointly with his wife, Cindy. The couple reported holding at least $2 million in stock in Hensley & Co., a beer distributorship owned by Cindy McCain's father, Jim Hensley . . . John McCain, R-Ariz., also reported at least $500,000 in Anheuser-Busch debentures, with most of the rest of the assets primarily in land holdings that his wife has invested in with her family . . . last year, McCain's wealth was estimated by Roll Call at closer to $2.9 million."
The Arizona Republic - May 16, 1991

"At the time, Devereux stumbled upon Bolles' notes concerning Charles C. Morgan, a Tucson escrow agent who took a bullet to the head in 1977 while wearing a bulletproof vest. According to Devereux, Morgan worked for organized crime figures . . . Devereux says, Danny Casolaro called 'out of the blue' to ask about laundering operations, a Tucson bank, the Bonanno family and Reagan administration officials . . . a few weeks after that conversation, Casolaro was found in a West Virginia motel room with his wrists slashed. The case, initially ruled a suicide . . . The Phoenix Gazette - March 28, 1992

"Miller blamed the car-bomb slaying on former greyhound owner John Harvey Adamson, who has confessed to murdering Bolles; Phoenix lawyer Neal Roberts; and the late Bradley Funk, whose family used to race greyhounds in Arizona . . . 'this is a case of two contracts, a contract to kill and a contract to cover up who ordered the killing,' he said . . . Granville contended that Dunlap plotted with Adamson to have Bolles killed in behalf of Kemper Marley Sr., a Phoenix land and liquor baron."
The Arizona Republic - February 10, 1993

"An Oregon racing regulator who has been offered the top post in the Arizona Racing Department thwarted in 1990 a Portland newspaper's investigation of a possible link between an Oregon track and an alleged organized-crime figure . . . on Friday, Gov. Fife Symington offered Barham the position of director of the Arizona Racing Department. Barham also would become director of the State Gaming Agency, which regulates Indian gaming . . . the Oregonian was looking into a possible connection between Oregon Racing, Inc. and the Emprise Corp., which had been forced out of Oregon because of allegations involving organized crime . . . the Oregonian became curious about Oregon Racing after learning that one of its early investors shared an office in Kenner, La., with John G. Masoni, a longtime Emprise partner . . . the Oregonian said Florida officials consider Masoni an 'associate' of the Detroit Mafia . . . Emprise, now called Delaware North Cos., long has had an interest in Arizona racing. At one time, the company had a virtual monopoly on dog and horse racing in the state in partnership with the Funk family of Phoenix . . . in the mid- '70s, the state moved to break the monopoly in light of a 1972 felony conviction of the company. Emprise was convicted in U.S. District Court in California of conspiring with racketeers to hide an ownership interest in the Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas."
The Arizona Republic - June 23, 1993

Photo caption: "Below, Charles Keating III and McCain, then a member of the U.S. House, celebrate their August birthdays at the Keating's beachside estate at Cat Cay in the Bahamas."
The Phoenix Gazette - September 12, 1993

"Cindy McCain, the wife of U.S. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, admitted in a series of media interviews Monday that she became addicted to the painkillers Percocet and Vicodin. She said that she used the drugs from 1989 to 1992 and acknowledged that she had stolen some pills from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a charitable organization of which she is president . . . at one point, McCain, 40, was ingesting 15 to 20 pills a day . . . the normal dosage for seriously ill patients is 6 to 10 a day for a short period."
The Arizona Republic - August 24, 1994

"Cindy McCain, who admitted to drug addiction this week, faces more problems, this time involving the adoption of a Bangladeshi baby two years ago.
"Sources confirmed Wednesday that a former employee of McCain's volunteer medical team has accused her of demanding that he commit perjury in adoption proceedings for her daughter, Bridget."
The Phoenix Gazette - August 25, 1994

"Her husband is Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz."
"Cindy McCain was investigated recently by the Drug Enforcement Administration for stealing and using Percocet and Vicodin, both narcotic painkillers from her aid organization . . . the county attorney's report provides a window to drug dealings within Cindy McCain's nonprofit corporation . . . Gosinski also alleged that Cindy McCain abused her husband's office and diplomatic privileges by transporting illegal substances overseas. He also claimed, according to her lawyers, that Cindy McCain tried to prevent him from providing accurate information to the DEA."
The Phoenix Gazette - August 25, 1994

"About 300 guests turned out Saturday night to celebrate the 90th birthday of Joseph 'Joe Bananas' Bonanno, retired boss of New York's Bonanno crime family. He retired to Tucson in 1968 . . . John McCain, R-Ariz., and Gov. Fife Symington sent their regards by telegram."
The Arizona Republic - January 17, 1995

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70E16F93D540C778CDDAC0894DD404482

NATIONAL DESK | May 4, 2005, Wednesday

Congressional Memo; House Scandal of the 90's Has Echoes in Travel Issue

By CARL HULSE (NYT) 964 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 18 , Column 5

ABSTRACT - Congressional Memo on parallels between furor surrounding travel and lobbyist ties of Republican leader Tom DeLay and House banking scandal of 1991, which forced retirement of dozens of lawmakers and defeated many at polls in 1992 (M)

http://www.rollcall.com/pub/50_86/fiftyyears/8475-1.html

House Bank Checks Out

March 14, 2005

Despite the huge national stories of 1991, such as the start of the Persian Gulf War and the controversy over Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court, nothing would have a bigger impact on Congress than the House Bank scandal, which led to dozens of retirements and re-election losses. The scandal essentially paved the way for the Republican takeover in 1994.

In late September, Roll Call broke the House Bank story using research from the then-General Accounting Office’s July 1989 to June 1990 audit. The audit exposed that “134 Members bounced 581 checks written for $1,000 or more, with 24 of these Members bouncing at least one such check per month in the last six months covered by the audit.”

Roll Call also reported that bouncing checks wasn’t a new thing for Members; rather, GAO reports showed that Members had started this “way of life” in 1984.

The story dominated national headlines for weeks, and there was pressure on the bank to publicly release the names of the Members who had bounced checks.

Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) was the first Member to step forward and admit that he bounced a check. Following Obey’s announcement, Roll Call conducted a telephone survey of all House Members and found that 20 admitted to bouncing checks. After the results were printed, one by one, the Members came forward on their own account, admitting their wrongdoing.

In the days and weeks following the scandal, everything that Congress did fell under the microscope. The Thursday, Oct. 3, issue featured a front page dedicated to the scandal and Members’ special privileges such as getting parking tickets fixed, dining credit cards and an ambulance for Members only.

While then-Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.) tried to put an end to the scandal almost as soon as it began, the House voted 390-8 in favor of having the ethics committee investigate the scandal and simultaneously order “its private cooperative bank to be shut down by the end of the year.”

In 1992, 43 House Members seeking re-election were defeated, and another 52 retired. Two years later, 38 incumbents lost and 26 retired as Republicans took control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n7_v44/ai_12127933

Rubber congressmen - check bouncing scandal
National Review, April 13, 1992 by William McGurn

Save a personal copy of this article and quickly find it again with Furl.net. It's free! Save it.
IT'S NOT OFTEN I find myself in the same league as our esteemed solons on Capitol Hill. But my bona fides was established the same day the Democrats caved in to pressure to release the names of all 296 members and 59 former members of Congress who had kited checks. That evening I returned home in high spirits, only to find a note from my bank saying that check #1331, in the amount of $300, had been returned for insufficient funds.

Like other outraged citizens, however, this will by no means preclude me from gleefully casting stones. For starters, unlike checks drawn on the House Bank, mine actually bounce when I go over the limit. In addition, my infraction will cost me $25. Had this standard fine applied to, say, Robert Mrazek (D., N.Y.), he would owe $24,300 in penalties alone.

But the biggest difference between these congressmen and the rest of us is a proper sense of shame. Most of us have at one time or another come up short in our checking accounts, and most of us are greatly embarrassed by the experience. Compare this to the pompous complaint by Vic Fazio (D., Calif.) on MacNeil/Lehrer that Republicans are talking about check-kiting "to avoid frankly the subjects that we really need to be talking about, the scandal in health care, the prolonged recession, the high rates of unemployment . . . ." etc. (You left out the homeless, congressman.) On the same show, radio whiz Rush Limbaugh immediately called him to task. "[I]t just won't do, Congressman Fazio, to sit there and say that the people don't care about this, that they want you to sit there and do the work of the country. You haven't been doing the work of the country. . . . You guys are our employees and you treat people in the country like we are your employees and you're the boss."

House Speaker Tom Foley must wish he had checked in with Mr. Limbaugh back when the issue was first brought to his attention, because his failure to act now threatens both his job and his party. As NR goes to press there are rumors that he was informed of problems with the House Bank as long ago as 1989, and we know for certain that there was a General Accounting Office report on the trouble back in 1990. The Speaker's failure to investigate is now sparking talk of a criminal investigation and is wreaking havoc in his own party. For Republicans, even more important than nailing another Speaker's scalp to the wall is an unprecedented opportunity to break the 38-year Democratic stranglehold on the Capitol--if only the President seizes the opportunity. If he doesn't, he is likely to find that the brewing public rebellion against government will lump him in with Congress as a willing accomplice.

Even the bare outlines of the scandal suffice to show why the Democrats are running scared. The first GAO report was completely ignored. But when the GAO issued another report in September 1991, a group of freshmen Republican known as the Gang of Seven--Scott Klug (Wis.), Rick Santorum (Pa.), Jim Nussle (Iowa), John Doolittle (Calif.), Frank Riggs (Calif.), Charles Taylor (N.C.), and John Boehner (Ohio)--pressed for an investigation and refused to back down. This took more guts than is generally acknowledged, because the Young Turks were taking on the club itself; one of them says he felt as though "a large bull's-eye" were painted on his back as he mingled with his colleagues. Although Speaker Foley rejected the call for an investigation, the Gang of Seven kept the pressure on with special orders (short speeches to the camera at the end of business), eventually forcing Foley's hand. The result was the ethics-committee investigation.

Here is where it becomes unclear how much of the Speaker's reluctance to act was criminal and how much was sheer incompetence. Originally he wanted to limit disclosure to the 24 worst offenders. Unfortunately, the criteria used to select these 24 were flawed: the member had to have bounced checks in 8 of the 39 months under review, and for amounts larger than his monthly salary. This didn't get at people like, say, number 25 on the list, who bounced more than 850 checks totaling more than $150,000 over that period. Minority Whip Newt Gingrich cried foul and pressed for full disclosure.

The irony was that, far from limiting damage, the attempt to protect those who had abused the system ended up hurting those who were guilty of nothing more than not knowing exactly what their balances were on any given day. Most congressmen are quite right to say they knew of no problems, because it appears the House Bank waited as long as seven weeks to cash deposits (leading to speculation that it was floating money to cover up other scams). Since more than two hundred relatively innocent congressmen now face an angry electorate, Speaker Foley is arguably more unpopular with Democracts in the House than he is with Republicans.

This is not to minimize the criminal element. Right now we know there was a delay between the time Foley knew about the scandal and when he acted. What is not yet clear is whether he informed the Postal Service investigators about the criminal evidence obtained by the Capital Police, and whether he took any steps to conceal any of this from the U.S. Attorney's office. On the individual level, there are already cases of admitted wrongdoing: former Representative Jim Bates (D., Calif.) and at least two others have admitted using money for their campaigns. Others could be in trouble with the IRS for their failure to report outstanding notes, as wellas those interest-free loans, as income. There are even rumors of one member taking intererest-free money from his House Bank account and lending it to his campaign at 16 per cent interest.

Nor is this stopping at the House Bank. Gang of Seven member Frank Riggs has introduced legislation calling for an independent investigator general to sort out the mess. Not surprisingly, the Democrats are opposed to that solution and want a House administrator who would report to them. But Republicans argue that an administrator would not have the authority to get at, say, the management of the Speaker's discretionary fund, now $20 milliong strong. A year ago Speaker Foley was threatening to use that money to investigate the "October Surprise." Republicans have no idea how this unaudited, unaccounted-for slush fund is spent. Now is a good time to ask.

In contrast to the expose that forced Speaker Jim Wright (D., Tex.) to step down three years ago, this is not a story of personal venality. Rather, it is a story about a system that made corruption routine. Already the first ripples are being felt In the Illinois Democratic primary, in addition to the scandal-ridden Gus Savage, voters also turned out Charles Hayes, another black congressman and check-bouncer hitherto thought undefeatable--as important an omen to the Democrats as Richard Thornburgh's defeat was to Republicans.

Right now the repercussions have hit mostly Democrats. But the public disaffection with government is not likely to be all that discriminating, particularly vis-a-vis a Republican Administration that all too often is in cahoots with the Democratic establishment it was explicitly elected to oppose. The check scandal, coming just as George Bush was failing to get Congress to act on his March 20 deadline for his economic package, is his great opportunity, the second second-chance we all pray for but rarely get. This is an opening to define himself as a reform Republican against a Tammany Hall Democratic system. If he joins the fight, he has the chance to bring down the entire Democratic establishment and redefine American politics for decades to come; if he sits on the sidelines he will be sucked in with the rest.

Newt Gingrich sums it up well: "The President has to decide: Is he the crony of a corrupt capital or the courageous reformer? What frightens me is that they [the White House] don't seem to know."

Mr. McGurn is NR's Washington Bureau Chief.

Senator McCain is pictured embracing Mai Van On in Hanoi, November 13, 1996. On identified himself as one of the Vietnamese who pulled McCain from Hanoi's Truc Bach Lake, where McCain parachuted in 1967 after his bomber was shot down. McCain has said, many times, that, after pulling him from the lake, the Vietnamese brutally beat him and stabbed him with a bayonet.
Sen. John McCain warmly greeted Vietnam Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet during a 1992 visit to Hanoi. Kiet was a ranking communist party member of the secret Central Committee of the former National Liberation Front (Viet Cong), and was part of the elite clique responsible for setting policies and directing the communist war waged against the pro-democracy Vietnamese as well as U.S. forces in South Vietnam. As a senior Central Committee member, Kiet ordered American POWs to be punished by execution and helped formulate the Vietnamese communist policy which resulted in the murder of thousands of pro-U.S. South Vietnamese in Hue during the Tet Offensive of 1968. Communist Party henchmen executed over 5,000 men, women, and children, burying many of them alive in mass graves during the brief time North Vietnamese troops held that historic ancient Vietnamese city.

Col. Bui Tin, a former Senior Colonel in the North Vietnamese Army (he had actually interrogated McCain and other U.S. prisoners) testified before the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs in 1992. At least 55 American POWs were murdered by their interrogators and guards while in North Vietnamese prisoner of war camps. Pictured right: During a break in the hearing, Sen. McCain moved to where Col. Bui Tin was seated and warmly embraced him as if he were a long lost brother.

"Dr. Fernando Barral, a Spanish psychiatrist residing in Cuba, returned from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam . . . he brought back some journalistic news: an interview with a North American pilot captured in the DRV after bombing Hanoi on 26 October 1967. The meeting between him and the pilot took place in an office of the Committee for Foreign Cultural Relations in Hanoi. The pilot interviewed is Lt Cmdr John Sidney McCain, son and grandson of American Navy Admirals. "In the course of the interview, on various occasions he showed that knowledge of the language, saying some words, dates, and so forth in Spanish, or [using it] when he thought the interpreter was seeking the corresponding French word. "Naturally, from the beginning this established a more direct communication between us, and more than one question or my response was made directly in Spanish." Havana Granma January 24, 1970

July 11, 1995, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., (right), and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., (center), gave President Bill Clinton, (left), the valuable political cover he needed to remove the U.S. imposed trade embargo against communist Vietnam. All major U.S. veterans organizations, the two POW/MIA family groups, and the majority of Vietnamese Americans in this country opposed Clinton's lifting of the embargo.

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