I eas trying to figure out how this little land-swap scam worked. Sandlin is mentioned extensively in the indictment, but no other names. Googling, I came across Babbitt, again.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401715.html
Sandlin bought into Renzi’s real estate firm in 2001, then paid about $200,000 for half the business and, after he was elected to Congress, $1 million to $5 million for the rest.
Investigators want to know whether Renzi twice attempted to arrange deals for Sandlin, including once by proposing legislation, two sources with knowledge of the investigations said.
According to land developer Guy Inzalaco, Renzi was approached last year by an investment group that included Inzalaco and former Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat. The group sought legislation that would put environmentally sensitive watershed land under federal protection in exchange for opening other federal land to development.
Renzi said he would back the legislation if the Sandlin tract was included, Inzalaco said.
Woods said Renzi was trying to include a tract of land that environmentalists had been trying to preserve for years and did not know until later that his business partner owned it.
That fall, Renzi announced he would introduce the San Pedro River Land Exchange Act, a bill that would include the Sandlin property. Within days, Sandlin sold the tract to the Inzalaco-Babbitt group, turning a $3 million profit in three years. The land-swap legislation was never enacted.
Inzalaco said yesterday that he knew nothing of Sandlin’s connections to Renzi.
This land swap deal sounds an awful lot like the one that McCain worked for his friend, Carl Lindner, between Scottsdale and Carefree, the one that I posted the link for, yesterday.