Harry Reid sells land to friend, fails to disclose on Ethics Reports

[Recliner Pilot 61]

How can this idiot be running the Dem party in the Senate? He doesn't think selling land alters his ownership stake in the land.

 

Can't wait for his "ammended" disclosure forms on his other shady land deals to find out how he explains them. Should be good for a laugh.

 

 

 

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid announced Monday he is amending his ethics reports to Congress to more fully account for a land deal that allowed him to collect $1.1 million for property he hadn't personally owned for three years.

 

Reid acted several days after The Associated Press reported the senator didn't disclose to Congress that he first sold the land to a friend's company back in 2001 and took an ownership stake in the company. He didn't collect the seven-figure payout until the company sold the land again in 2004 to others.

 

Reid said his amended ethics reports will list the 2001 sale.

 

"I directed my staff to file amended financial disclosure forms noting that in 2001, I transferred title to the land to a Limited Liability Corporation," Reid said in a statement issued by his office.

 

Reid said he believed the 2001 sale did not alter his ownership of the land but that he agreed to file the amended reports because "I believe in ensuring all facts come to light."

 

Reid blamed the AP story as a "latest attempt" by Republicans to affect the election. AP reported last week that it learned of the land deal from a former Reid adviser who had concerns about the way the deal was reported to Congress.

 

Reid also announced he failed to disclose two other land transactions on his prior ethics reports and would account for those on his amended reports.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/10/16/D8KPS1G00.html

[Recliner Pilot 61]

More on Reid's corruption.

 

 

October 16, 2006 -- SENATE Minority Leader Harry Reid's ethics woes continue to mount. An Associated Press expose shows that Reid pushed through changes in federal law that helped the senator get rich - via complex land deals with a lobbyist who's also tied up in a federal bribery case.

 

Reid has now told the Senate Ethics Committee that he'll amend his past disclosure statements to for the first time cover the business relationships that AP has exposed. But he calls the amendment "technical" - which suggests it won't explain why his original "disclosures" misled the public on the nature of a partnership that made him a $700,000 windfall.

 

It isn't the first time Harry Reid's ties to real-estate developers have caused people to question the senator's ethics.

 

Back in August, the Los Angeles Times exposed Reid's questionable involvement and compensation in another Nevada real-estate deal. Harvey Whittemore, a lobbyist and real-estate investor, had plied Reid with campaign contributions and employed Reid's family members. The senator, in turn, helped Whittemore bulldoze through a host of environmental regulations in developing a huge parcel outside Las Vegas, to profit in the tens of millions.

 

What Reid failed to disclose was his 2001 transfer of ownership of two parcels of land to Patrick Lane LLC - an entity in which he was partnered with one Jay Brown.

 

AP notes that Brown is a lobbyist, with reported links to organized crime. And he figures prominently in a federal criminal case - which concerns the bribery of members of the Clark County (Nev.) Zoning Commission by developers seeking changes to permit retail development on land they owned, vastly increasing its value.

 

As it happens, in 2001, the Clark County (Nev.) Zoning Commission approved a zoning change that allowed commercial/retail development on the land that Reid owned with Brown.

 

Then, the next year, Reid introduced and pushed into law the Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002. The senator heralded this as vital in protecting the environment near Las Vegas. In fact, however, the law forced the Department of the Interior to sell off 18,000 acres of land around Las Vegas, spurring development and boosting the value of real-estate investments in the region. (Not what anyone normally associates with "protecting the environment.")

 

Normally, the government would have to sell this land at auction, as land swaps had lost the federal government millions in southern Nevada. But Reid insisted on suspending that rule in his Clark County act. The developers that hired his sons as lobbyists prospered with the lower-cost acquisitions of prime real estate through the uneven swaps. Also in the money were those - like Harry Reid himself - who'd already invested money in Clark County real estate.

 

The L.A. Times revealed the Reid family's extensive connections with Clark County developers in June 2003, as well as Reid's extensive legislative interest in the land, but the Brown-Reid investment had not yet come to light - thanks to Reid's failure to disclose.

 

Had the investment been known, voters could have made the connection. The Senate Ethics Committee might have taken an interest as well - except that Harry Reid himself sat as the top Democrat on that panel.

 

Disclosures now are pointless. The ethics panel needs to order a full investigation not just into the $700,000 profit, but all of Reid's business partners and any legislation or intervention with federal regulators Reid pushed on their behalf.

 

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10162006/posto...d_morrissey.htm

[surferskin 30]

more democrap corruption.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

It's not illegal if he is a Dummycrat.

[davebg 0]

The latest on Reid has him reimbursing his campaign b/c he used campaign donations to pay Christmas bonuses to the staff at the place where he lives.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has been using campaign donations instead of his personal money to pay Christmas bonuses for the support staff at the Ritz-Carlton where he lives in an upscale condominium. Federal election law bars candidates from converting political donations for personal use.

Questioned about the campaign expenditures by The Associated Press, Reid's office said Monday he was personally reimbursing his campaign for $3,300 in donations he had directed to the staff holiday fund at his residence.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/10/16/D8KPUR0G2.html

[Recliner Pilot 61]

Holy shiat!! Even more Reid corruption. Will it ever end?

 

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has been using campaign donations instead of his personal money to pay Christmas bonuses for the support staff at the Ritz-Carlton where he lives in an upscale condominium. Federal election law bars candidates from converting political donations for personal use.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/10/16/D8KPUR0G2.html

[FranksTanks 0]

Looks like the GOP is getting a little nervous about the possibility of Reid being the new Senate Majority Leader.

Time to smear, smear, smear!!!

 

Here's Reid's response.

“Last month, Republicans openly boasted that they would engage in a campaign of personal attacks and smears to hold onto power in Washington. In recent days, we witnessed their latest attempt to do just that.

 

“Republicans may believe in cover-ups. I believe in ensuring all facts come to light.

 

“Last week, a highly misleading report by the Associated Press implied that I made a profit selling land I no longer owned. That article was wrong. Here are the facts: I bought the land in 1998, I sold it in 2004, and I listed my ownership of the land on official Senate disclosure forms every single year.

 

“Now I have taken an additional step. Today, I directed my staff to file amended financial disclosure forms noting that in 2001, I transferred title to the land to a Limited Liability Corporation. As the amended forms make clear, this routine legal move in no way altered my actual ownership of the land. On each disclosure form after 2001, I have added a note to clarify that the land already disclosed in detail on those forms was owned by me through the LLC.

 

“The Ethics Committee has not yet advised me whether I should file these amended forms, but even if I am not required to do so I am happy to go beyond what is needed to provide the fullest disclosure. The amended forms make clear what was true all along – I owned the land through the LLC when I sold it in 2004.

 

“Also, in the course of preparing the amended disclosure forms, my staff has identified some clerical errors and two minor matters that were inadvertently left off my original disclosure forms. First, in 2004 I sold about one third of an acre in my hometown of Searchlight. Second, a quarter acre of land that I received from my brother in 1985 appreciated in value above the $1,000 reporting threshold at some point in recent years. Both of these items will be listed on my amended disclosure forms.

 

“Finally, I have acted today to respond to another issue some plan to raise. I have sent a personal check in the amount of $3,300 to my political campaign to fully reimburse the campaign for donations it made over several years to the employee holiday fund in my apartment building. These donations were made to thank the men and women who work in the building for the extra work they do as a result of my political activities, and for helping the security officers assigned to me because of my Senate position. The donations came from my campaign – no taxpayer dollars were ever involved.

 

“When the campaign first donated to the holiday fund, its experienced lawyer William Oldaker advised us that such donations were permissible. The campaign's current lawyer, Marc Elias, says the same thing. Nonetheless, I am reimbursing the campaign from my own pocket to prevent this issue from being used in the current campaign season to deflect attention from Republican failures.”

http://reid.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=264714&

[Greedo 13]

No one ever claimed, RP, that both parties weren't corrupt.

 

However, I suspect based on your comments you know little about finance and real estate. Converting land into an LLC, often a single asset LLC, is extremely common, and so Reid rightly claimed he still owned the land. Blame the government's tax code for necessitating the creation of LLCs for this purpose.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

No one ever claimed, RP, that both parties weren't corrupt.

 

However, I suspect based on your comments you know little about finance and real estate. Converting land into an LLC, often a single asset LLC, is extremely common, and so Reid rightly claimed he still owned the land. Blame the government's tax code for necessitating the creation of LLCs for this purpose.

 

 

Since he sold the land for part of the company, upon recieving money for the re-sale shouldn't Reid have given up his portion of the company? Otherwise he has been paid twice for the same land.