Reid's Whitewater

NY Sun ^ | 1/30/07 | staff

[pissant]

Voters looking for clues as to how — or, more to the point, whether — the Democrats are going to redeem their issue of honesty and integrity on Capitol Hill will be keeping an eye on the growing scandal around the majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid. He is caught up in a corker of a controversy over a questionable land deal.

One might think that after all the legal fees and energy the Clintons spent defending Whitewater, a top Democratic politician would know better than to get into a complicated, questionable land deal. But the message doesn't seem to have reached Mr. Reid, who is the subject of a fascinating dispatch in Sunday's Los Angeles Times.

The Times' dispatch, from Bullhead City, Ariz., begins, "It's hard to buy undeveloped land in booming northern Arizona for $166 an acre. But now-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid effectively did just that when a longtime friend decided to sell property owned by the employee pension fund that he controlled. In 2002, Reid (D-Nev.) paid $10,000 to a pension fund controlled by Clair Haycock, a Las Vegas lubricants distributor and his friend for 50 years. The payment gave the senator full control of a 160-acre parcel in Bullhead City that Reid and the pension fund had jointly owned.

[pissant]

Dingy Harry needs to be yanked out of the Senate by his Obama-esque ears.

[NeilGus]

No news here.

Just a Democrat being a Democrat.

[Beth528]

Remember this is a Democrat we are talking about..Nothing will ever put the criminals in jail..Clinton saw to that by putting in so many crooked judges..

[olezip]

Greed is called a selfish desire to obtain money, wealth, food, material possessions or any other entity more than one legitimately needs. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins, but IMO for dingy Harry avarice is a better term!

[bmwcyle]

Put all behind bars.

[sgtbono2002]

To be honest I dont trust a person on the Hill irregardless of party. They are all crooks IMO.

You just dont spend the amounts of money these guys spend to get into power without expecting a return on that money.

[Recon Dad]

Clair Haycock, you didn't preform your fiduciary duty buddy. It's not hard to sell land for $166 per acre. Did the pension fund need a write off?

[Recon Dad]

Bingo!!!!!!!!! Most of them go and get elected and before you know it they become financial geniuses.
None of them went to business schools as far as I know.

[org.whodat]

Bingo!!!!!!!!! Most of them go and get elected and before you know it they become financial geniuses. None of them went to business schools as far as I know.

Ever meet an attorney that didn't think he was a genius in all fields?

[sgtbono2002]

I dont know if they become financial genius's or not, but they all come back rich.

But then a lot of them were rich when they started. A poor man has about the same chance as the proverbial camel passing thru the eye of a needle in getting into the Congress. Politics is a rich mans game.

[NonValueAdded]

I wonder if Harry feels a gentle warming sensation yet?

[brothers4thID]

"growing scandal" my butt. I doubt more than 5% of the population know anything about this.

[Gritty]

[narses]

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[Princip. Conservative]

Dirty Harry strikes again. He's a big fish now, so don't be surprised if this grows into something . . .

[billhilly]

"You just dont spend the amounts of money these guys spend to get into power without expecting a return on that money."

It isn't their money they spend to get in office, just like it isn't their money they waste and give to their favorite supporters after they get in office. They have a win/win situation.

[kitkat]

BUMP

[libstripper]

This is really a lot bigger than Dingy just getting a sweetheart real estate deal in return for doing a favor. Instead, it apparently crosses over into being a potentially serious crime because Dingy acquired the property from a pension fund. All IRS qualified pension funds are regulated by the Department of Labor and the IRS. When an employer establishes a "qualified" pension plan the money must be paid into a separate trust, exempt from the claims of the employer's creditors, that's legally required to be administered by the employer in the sole interest of the covered employees, who are its beneficiaries. Thus, the employer becomes a fiduciary who's legally required to act solely on behalf of the employee beneficiaries of the plan in admininstgerintg the plan's assets. If the employer embezzles money from the plan either directly or by selling its assets for far less than their fair market value, he violates that fiduciary duty and is guilty of a serious felony. If plan assets are sold in a sweetheart deal for far less than market value, it's likely that both the selling employer/fiduciary and the purchaser could be successfully prosecuted for conspiring to embezzle the plan's assets, an even more serious felony.

It looks like Dingy conspired with the seller of this property to perpetrate just such a felony so the seller could get Dingy to support favorable legislation.
Dingy acquired the land for $10,000, about $50,000 less than it was appraised for, meaning the plan administrator probably violated his fiduciary duties to the plan's participants by giving away their $50,000 realty interest as a likely bribe to Dingy. Thus, we have Dingy and the seller of the land in a probable conspiracy to embezzle $50,000 of the plan's assets and a second probable conspiracy to use those assets as a bribe.

Now I'm taking bets on how far the Bush administration will go to investigate and prosecute this vile business. How many of you, along with me, suspect that this will just go under the rug, along with all the other DemonRat crimes Bush has deliberately refused to prosecute? Worst of all, by consistently refusing to prosecute major, probable crimes like this, he's depriving us of one of the best grounds we have for retaining the White House and regaining Congress in 2008. It's disgusting.

[aimee5291]

I thought Harry was a good Morman....?

[andy58-in-nh]

Aside from a few conservative newspapers and talk radio, this story will likely vanish without a trace. Unlike Republicans, Democrats protect their own. As roughly 90% of the news media is controlled by Democrats, and having retaken control of Congress, I doubt they will let anything get in the way of their war on the War.