RESEARCH——FAMILY TIES: Nevada senator’s family excels in lucrative ties; [Final Edition] Chuck Neubauer and Richard Cooper Los Angeles Times. Jul 6, 2003. pg. 4.A
Abstract (Document Summary)
Reid’s sons — Rory, 40, Leif, 35, Josh, 31, and Key, 28 — work for Nevada’s largest law firm, Lionel Sawyer Collins. Rory Reid is a partner in the firm and was a Nevada lobbyist before his election to the Clark County Board of Commissioners in November. Leif Reid is a litigator who has represented mining and resort industry associations in Nevada.
Key Reid was hired to open the firm’s Washington office in 2002 and help lead its federal lobbying effort with former Sen. Richard H. Bryan, D-Nev., who splits his time between the capital and Nevada. [Steven Barringer], 47, and married to the senator’s daughter, Lana, is a lawyer, federal lobbyist and partner in the small Washington-based lobbying firm of McClure, Gerard and Neuenschwander.
Reid’s sons — Rory, 40, Leif, 35, Josh, 31, and Key, 28 — work for Nevada’s largest law firm, Lionel Sawyer Collins. Rory Reid is a partner in the firm and was a Nevada lobbyist before his election to the Clark County Board of Commissioners in November.
Leif Reid is a litigator who has represented mining and resort industry associations in Nevada. Key Reid was hired to open the firm’s Washington office in 2002 and help lead its federal lobbying effort with former Sen. Richard H. Bryan, D-Nev., who splits his time between the capital and Nevada. Barringer, 47, and married to the senator’s daughter, Lana, is a lawyer, federal lobbyist and partner in the small Washington-based lobbying firm of McClure, Gerard and Neuenschwander. Barringer and Reid’s sons declined to be interviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
Washington lobbying firms must file reports twice a year that disclose their clients and the names of the people representing them. Those reports show that, between them, Barringer and Key Reid have represented nearly every major industry in Nevada, from mining and real estate development to tourism and gambling to the city of Las Vegas. All of those clients rely on the senator’s goodwill on Capitol Hill. Reid is the Senate’s minority whip, the chamber’s second-highest Democratic leader. He is also a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and the Environment and Public Works Committee.
CIRCA 2/03 Los Angeles Times series on Reid; Harry’s Henchman, his son Rory Reid: Harry Reid’s Mob Money, Part 2 (* Unless otherwise noted Sources: Federal lobbyist forms filed with the House and Senate by his son, Key Reid, for 2002 and Steven Barringer for 1999 through 2002; state lobbyist forms filed by his son Rory Reid for 2002 with the Nevada Legislative Reference Office; congressional bills, news releases and documents; legal records; interview with Sen. Harry Reid; interviews with clients of the Reid family.)
GAMING: The American Gaming Assn. Honored Sen. Reid as one of “America’s Gaming Greats” and hired his son-in-law to lobby in Washington.; MINING: Mines such as Barrick Goldstrike have benefited from Sen. [Harry Reid]’s advocacy in the Senate. The Nevada Mining Assn., gave him a lifetime achievement award. Industry leaders have paid his son- in-law’s firms nearly $1 million for lobbying.;
TOURISM: Sen. Reid fought Grand Canyon flight restrictions. One operator was a client of his son-in- law.; The firm that, with Sen. Reid’s aid, traded hilly land for federal parcels near Las Vegas also hired his son-in-law;
LAND DEVELOPMENT: Sen. Reid tried and failed to move a right-of-way for power lines to aid Nevada developers led by a friend who is a partner at the firm where Reid’s sons work;
REID IS UNTROUBLED: “It is not as if a lot of cash is changing hands,” Sen. Harry Reid says;
LA TIMES SERIES In Nevada, the Name to Know is Reid; Members of Reid’s family represent nearly every major industry in Nevada;their clients rely on Reid’s goodwill. Series: Second of two parts; Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Jun 23, 2003. pg. A.1
Reid helped the University of Nevada at Reno secure millions of dollars in specially earmarked funds in his work on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
How much family members’ firms have been paid*: $10,000 a month to the Lionel Sawyer firm for lobbying by his son Key Reid and former Sen. Richard Bryan
The special interest: Kerr-McGee Corp.
What Sen. Reid has done: Helped the oil and chemical company get federal funds to help pay to clean up radioactive waste at a company plant near Chicago. How much family members’ firms have been paid*: Undisclosed amount to the Lionel Sawyer firm for Rory Reid and others to lobby in Nevada
The special interest: Heli USA Airways, a leading Grand Canyon tour operator
What Sen. Reid has done: Opposed federal attempts to restrict Grand Canyon tours. How much family members’ firms have been paid*: $20,000 to the Dickstein firm for Barringer and others to lobby The special interest: Air Products & Chemicals Inc.
What Sen. Reid has done: Backed a $10.8-million, public-private partnership between the company and federal government to build a hydrogen filling station for buses. How much family members’ firms have been paid*: Undisclosed amount to the Lionel Sawyer firm for Rory Reid and others to lobby in Nevada
The special interest: Nevada Test Development Site Corp.
What Sen. Reid has done: Helped funnel millions of dollars in federal funds to develop the test site. How much family members’ firms have been paid: $20,000 to the McClure firm for Barringer and others to lobby federal agencies
THE POLITICIANS’ Modus Operandi
Did Reid deliberately raise more corporate money from publicly-held corporations than he needed, then divert some of the excess in a series of generous donations to non-profit groups that, on the surface, benefited their mutual causes?
The donations to non-profits might then be illegally converted, then funneled back to Reid‘s campaign coffers through donations by the N/P officers and their co-conspirators, or subsets of them.
These complicated transactions should draw scrutiny in legal and political circles to determine the extent to which state laws and campaign finance laws were violated in schemes that appear to launder corporate donations to a candidate, and should raise questions that should be investigated regarding whether shareholders in publicly-funded corporations were deceived, and whether the true destination of corporate money was concealed (SEC is interested in this).
Sen Reid may also have used non-profit, ethnic, hyphenated, or faith-based groups as middlemen for campaign transactions by a pattern of Reid funneling money from his family-run foundations to these different groups, that was laundered, then landed in Reid’s campaign accounts, in order to obscure, if not cover-up, the original source of donations to his campaign coffers.
Reid, his sons, his family, or his henchmen might also have directed that campaign donations be made in the names of others without their knowledge or consent. When the financial merry-go-round stopped,
non-profit, ethnic, hyphenated, and faith-based individuals-—the groups Reid needs to endorse his election effort-—end up with a lot of money, some of which was then laundered, illegally converted, then funneled back into Reid’s campaign coffers.
Millions of dollars in donations to Reid might never have been disclosed to campaign regulators, because the type of groups Reid used weren’t governed by federal law.
The public-spirited donors might not always have known where their tax-deductible money was headed, and don’t control funds once they’re donated.
Money gets transferred all the time and remains disclosed only to the extent required to be disclosed by applicable state and federal law-—this gets complicated.