Friday, February 22nd, 2008...11:25 am
Rick Renzi Rain Whisper
What’s good about this blogging enterprise is that some of the work gets done for you. For example, I haven’t had the chance to peruse the Rick Renzi indictment, but one of the R-Cubed Legion has (you can peruse it yourself, I uploaded it here).
One part of the allegations deal with James Sandlin, Renzi’s pal, who owed him $700,000 (Don’t none of you complain when I want to bum gas money off of you). So, Renzi pushed for a land exchange involving a mining company called Resolution Copper. Sandlin was able to make enough money off of the deal to pay Renzi $733,000 (according to the indictment). I suppose that that must have included some interest, maybe a gratuity?
Here’s the fun part: a bank account had to be set up so that the money transfer to Renzi could be hidden. The name of the account: The Rick Renzi Rain Whisper Account. It’s on page 16 if you don’t believe me.
The other set of allegations involve insurance fraud (defrauding a non profit, even!), which may have paid for Renzi’s first race. I’ll post something after I’ve had a chance to look at those.
UPDATE: In a sign that the Republicans learned something from their experience with Tom Delay, The Hill is reporting that John “Merkle” Boehner is asking Renzi to resign.
4 Comments
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:47 am
Is it just me - but the silence on the conservative az blogs to race in and defend or support of either Rep. Renzi or Sen. McCain is deafening….
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:20 pm
wondersnevercease:
Well, if you’re a Republican and the only certain candidate you have to run for Renzi’s seat is wacky ultra-conservative anti-abortion activist Sydney Hay then you’d want to ignore the Renzi story too.
If Renzi resigned then Governor Napolitano could call the special election as quickly as possible, which would likely force the Republicans to either run Hay or an underfinanced campaign quickly thrown together in the special against a Democrat who has been running for more than a year (there are three to choose from– I like Kirkpatrick but believe any of them could beat Hay), and the winner would be a favorite to repeat the victory in November, but if Renzi doesn’t resign then his ongoing trial will cast the cloud of a reprise of the ‘culture of corruption’ over GOP candidates in the fall election.
My best guess is 1. that Renzi will resign on May 5– avoiding the special election by a day and creating a vacancy until November while giving the GOP as much time as possible to recruit and fundraise for a real candidate, and 2. it won’t matter. There is a reason why three Republican legislators chose not to run this year. Whoever they do pick, will very likely lose anyway. So maybe they will pick Hay.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Rick Renzi did nothing wrong. This is a land grab by Rio Tino and BHP Billiton who formed Resolution Copper to steal copper from federal lands. Their copper mine will be the largest copper mine ever. They will turn Arizona into a toxic waste dump. Do you support toxic waste polluters or a honest man like Rick?
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
hey leads, or should i say rick?
you’re crazy. end of story. slick rick is as far from an honest man as you can get.
Leave a Reply