Posted by
Steve on Thursday, October 12, 2006 11:11:55 PM
Earlier this year, Harry Reid tried to pin corruption charges on the Republicans. He likened the Republicans cleaning up the corruption to John Gotti cleaning up the Mob. Well, it seems that Harry Reid had his finger in the corruption pot all along.
As the facts are coming out, here is my understanding. Harry Reid purchased some land in Las Vegas for $400,000. A couple of years later, he sold that land for $400,000 to a good friend's company. So far, no problem with him doing anything wrong. But, he reports that he owns the land on his Senate reporting form. Does he own the land or did he sell the land? Four years later, his friend sells the land and gives Harry Reid $1.1 million in profit.
The land was always private land. It joined land that was public land that was sold to Harry's friend. There is no problem with a friend of a Senator buying land. Even land next to the land owned by the Senator. People that know each other frequently buy land adjacent to one another. The land was zoned for houses. Harry and his friend applied to the Las Vegas County Commissioners for a rezoning to commercial property. Again, there is no problem with requesting the rezoning.
One problem is that Harry's son is a County Commissioner in Las Vegas and ruled on the land owned by, or maybe not owned by, his Father. I have not heard accurate time lines. I am not sure when the land rezoning request was made. It may have been made while Harry was an owner or after he sold the property. My guess is that the sale of the property was on paper. Harry still owned the property, but had to divest himself of the property, on paper, because his son is a County Commissioner. That way there was no conflict of interest for Harry's son. He could rule and even argue in favor of the rezoning and would be considered pure. Did he know of his Father's interest in the property? It would make sense that he did. My children know of my investments. I am sure that Harry's children basicallly know of all of his investments also.
When the land sold, Harry received his cut of the proceeds. He never expected anyone to question the investment. It was done with a long time friend and was done with a handshake. But on paper, Harry did not own the property when he received the $1.1 million. Why did he receive the payment? Was it a payoff like Hillary Clinton's cattle future's?
Harry Reid has a lot of explaining to do. He hung up on a reporter when questioned about this. That is a good way to make sure that reporters investigate it further. We will learn about the details of this transaction. If he is involved with corruption, he should be removed from the Senate. He should also probably spend some time on the inside of some jail somewhere. If he did nothing wrong, we should be given the full details as soon as possible. If there is nothing to hide, the truth will come out quickly. If there is something to hide, the truth will come out slowly.
There is one thing I have learned about Democrats. If they accuse Republicans of doing something, you can guarantee that the Democrats are doing it. The Republicans probably are not doing it, but the Democrats are. The Democrats made a big deal of accusing the Republicans of corruption. It is sounding more and more like the Democrats are the ones involved in the corruption.