Today's Wall St. Journal provides a level of detail to the Renzi coverage that I haven't seen elsewhere. The article is by subscription only, but here's an excerpt.
DEAL BREAKER
Land-Swap Plan Causes Trouble For Congressman Mr. Renzi Offers Field To Mining Companies; Grand Jury Is Active
By JOHN R. WILKE
SUPERIOR, Ariz. -- As they dig for nickel, copper and other commodities in the far corners of the earth, the world's largest mining companies, Rio Tinto PLC and BHP Billiton Ltd., are used to solving geological problems. Here, though, the problems they encountered were political.
North America's largest copper lode is believed to be buried more than a mile beneath Apache Leap, the stark red cliffs that loom above this storied Old West town about an hour east of Phoenix. Resolution Copper Co., a joint venture between Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, wants to mine it. But first it needs Congress to approve a federal land exchange, under which Resolution would swap 5,000 acres of private land for 3,000 acres of public land near its planned mine.
In exchange for supporting the bill, the local congressman, Rick Renzi, a Republican, insisted on something in return: He wanted Resolution to buy, as part of the land swap, a 480-acre alfalfa field near his hometown of Sierra Vista, according to documents and people involved in the deal.
Resolution executives refused. For starters, they thought the land was overpriced, people close to the deal say. More troubling, they discovered it was owned by Mr. Renzi's former business partner, these people say.
Resolution wasn't the only party troubled by the congressman's demands. His chief of staff resigned and began cooperating secretly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to witnesses and others close to the case. The FBI began a preliminary inquiry that was first reported in October, just before Mr. Renzi was elected to a third term.
That investigation has now become a formal public-corruption probe by a federal grand jury in Tucson. On Thursday, the grand jury authorized a search warrant of a Renzi family business. Investigators have uncovered evidence that Mr. Renzi received a cash payment from his former business partner, funneled through a family wine company, after a second investor group pursuing an unrelated land swap agreed to pay $4 million for the alfalfa field, according to people contacted in the course of the two-year investigation.
Mr. Renzi denies any wrongdoing and says that he intends to cooperate with the investigation. The search of the family business, he said in a statement Friday, is "the first step toward getting the truth out." His lawyer says the cash payment he received was to settle an unrelated debt.
The FBI also raided the Virginia business of Rep. Rick Renzi and forced Renzi to step down from his position on the House Intelligence Committee which we do not understand how he could be on that committee without any qualifications! Renzi accepted hundreds of thousands from Abramoff also and claims he has no intention of returning that money. Renzi is also guilty of swapping land which was worth nothing until he got the government involved and it was then worth $3 million! A land sale earned a $3 million profit for an ex-partner of Rep. Rick Renzi. He is accused of paying a business partner back for campaign contributions made to him.
Renzi is guilty of voting for government contracts in favor of his father's business dealings . Renzi voted to protect the oil industry from being sued when their carcinogen MTBE contaminated well water.Renzi received over $100,000. from these same oil companies for his vote. Renzi has used his position in the congress to financially help his family and his friends and has never worked to represent the people of his district. He has also bilked money from Indian tribes and made promises he never kept. Renzi is guilty of having U.S.Attorney Paul Charlton fired because he was getting too close to indicting Renzi for the same charges made against Cunningham.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Thursday that Charlton was fired
for "poor judgment," according to the AP. Charlton's judgement was
leading to an indictment of Rep. Rick Renzi.
For the moment, Renzi has vacated his seat on the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, which involves oversight of all covert and
clandestine operations for the United States.
Renzi's father, Eugene Renzi, is a retired Army major general and senior
executive vice president of ManTech International Corp., a defense
contractor. Eugene Renzi is also president of the company's Defense Systems Group,
which involves telecommunications and information systems, according to
the company's Web site.
ManTech wins $80 million Army contract for property management support
Rep. Renzi Sponsored Legislation "Financially" Benefiting His Father
In 2003, Rep. Renzi sponsored legislation (signed into law in November
2003) that dealt hundreds of millions of dollars to his father's business
while, according to environmentalists, devastating the San Pedro River.
The provision exempted the Army's Fort Huachuca base in Sierra Vista,
Arizona from maintaining water levels in the San Pedro River as called for
in an agreement made in 2002 with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Rep.
Renzi claimed he introduced the measure to prevent the closing of the Fort
and to promote its enlargement. Notably, neither the fort nor the river is
located in Rep. Renzi's district. He had no authority to do this so why
hadn't anyone paid any attention to what this corrupt dis-honorable
representative did?
"A key beneficiary" of Rep. Renzi's legislation was ManTech International
Corp., a Fairfax, Virginia based defense contractor where Rep. Renzi's
father, Retired Major General Eugene Renzi, is an executive vice
president. ManTech had $467 million in contracts at Fort Huachuca with
options for an additional $1.1 billion between 2004 through 2008. In
addition, the company, which has an office in Sierra Vista, Arizona, was
the largest contributor to Renzi's 2002 congressional campaign and the
second largest in his 2004 campaign.
Rep. Renzi accepted campaign contributions & BRIBES from ManTech in
exchange for pushing through legislation benefiting the company, he would
be in violation of 18 U.S.C. §sect;201(b)(2)(A).
ManTech International is Rick Renzi's top donor, contributing $37,200 in
three campaigns, according to one nonpartisan organization that tracks
political donations.
Renzi has raised $5.7 million in three elections and has a net worth
between $1.2 million and $5.3 million, according to The Center for
Responsive Politics.
Patriot Insurance Agency, Inc., a residence valued at between $250,001 to
$500,000 and three investment accounts each containing less than $15,000
are listed among his family assets.
Patriot Insurance was worth between $100,001 and $1 million in 2005.
Real estate that was part of Renzi Vino Inc., in Sonoita, was sold in 2005
for between $500,000 and $1 million, according to a financial disclosure
statement from that year.
An AP reporter discovered that Renzi may be indicted for income tax fraud and a related charge to the bribery.
Click Here to open this web site: The Patty Roe story: the interesting ethics of Congressman Rick Renzi.
It is about a woman named Patty Roe who (in apparent violation of Congressional rules designed to prevent conflicts of interest) works for Rick Renzi in his office while simultaneously doing fundraising for the Congressman (and a few of his colleagues). According to the article, she will make $60,000 on top of her office salary.
The funniest part of it is where a Renzi spokesman says,
“Whatever fundraising she does, is on her time.”
Besides all of the above Renzi is a hot head and couldn't control his temper as he attacked a fellow congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL.) right on the floor of the congress and tried to choke him to death in May, 2005!
Hopefully the painting of Renzi's prison cell will be completed & it awaits his presence!
Posted by: Tom Matarrese | April 21, 2007 at 08:02 PM
Some facts here and a lot of nonsense too. The notion that Renzy tried to commit murder on the floor of the U.S. Capitol by choking "to death" a fellow Congressman is total garbage. Someday Tom will learn that when you put stuff like that in your posts, you look like a lunatic and the stuff in your post that had merit ends up disregarded as the ravings of a madman...
Too bad too, because there was likely some real stuff in there...
Posted by: Ahwatukee Kid | April 21, 2007 at 08:34 PM
Some facts here and a lot of nonsense too. The notion that Renzi tried to commit murder on the floor of the U.S. Capitol by choking "to death" a fellow Congressman is total garbage. Someday Tom will learn that when you put stuff like that in your posts, you look like a lunatic and the stuff in your post that had merit ends up disregarded as the ravings of a madman...
Too bad too, because there was likely some real stuff in there...
Posted by: Ahwatukee Kid | April 21, 2007 at 08:35 PM