Reid Is Pure Slime. How Does He Keep His Job? Does He Have So Much On His Enemies?

Probe Uncovers More Reid 'Slush Fund' Payments to Granddaughter

Thursday, 27 Mar 2014 12:09 PM

By Drew MacKenzie

Share:

A    A   |

   Email Us   |

   Print   |

   Forward Article  |

   Get Short Link

• inShare

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is at the center of a growing political controversy after it was revealed Thursday that more payments from his campaign funds had been made to his granddaughter than previously reported.

The Nevada Democrat promised earlier this week to reimburse $16,787 his campaign gave to Ryan Elisabeth Reid in 2013 for what was described as payments for “holiday gifts.” Those payments were reportedly made to purchase items from Ryan Elisabeth Reid, who has her own line of jewelry. Reid defended the payments, saying they complied with Federal Election Commission standards that allow the purchase of goods from relatives if those goods are sold at fair market value.

Jahan Wilcox, a Republican National Committee spokesman, decried Harry Reid's use of campaign monies as a "personal slush fund."

Things got worse for Reid when the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Thursday that federal disclosures show the campaign paid another $14,481 to Reid's granddaughter in 2012, bringing to $31,268 the total paid to  Ryan Elisabeth in 2012 and 2013 to purchase gifts for Reid's support staff.

Reid told the newspaper that 23-year-old Ryan has been the target of "harassing" phone calls and “negative unwanted attention on the Internet.”

In a statement, Reid said, "This has gone too far and it needs to stop now. I deeply regret any role I had in creating this situation but now, as a grandparent, I say enough is enough.

"Landra [Reid’s wife] and I are extremely proud of our granddaughter, we love her very much and we regret any unwanted attention that these stories have brought to her."

The scandal came to light earlier this week after Las Vegas journalist Jon Ralston investigated campaign payments made to a "Ryan Elisabeth."

The Federal Election Commission asked Reid’s campaign, Friends for Harry Reid, to provide more information about the gift money, and was informed about that the payments were, in fact, made to Reid’s granddaughter.

Ryan, the daughter of former Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid, designs jewelry and a gift line and is also the creative director of a New York theater company. Ryan Elisabeth is the name of her jewelry company, and the “holiday gifts” were trinkets — coasters, picture frames, jewelry — for Reid’s staff.

Reid maintained that the gifts were in full compliance with FEC regulation, but he vowed on Wednesday to pay back his campaign for the full amount.

Before the additional payments were revealed, Reid said, "I thought it would be nice to give supporters and staff thank-you gifts that had a personal connection."

But the Review-Journal said that "the potential appearance" Reid was using funds from political donors to enrich a family member prompted his decision to reimburse the campaign.

Republicans have slammed Reid for what they called improper spending by turning donor contributions into a slush fund.

"It's pretty brazen for Sen. Harry Reid to funnel…campaign funds to his granddaughter for 'holiday gifts,'" Wilcox said. "One of these days Reid will learn that Nevadans don’t appreciate him using campaign money as his personal slush fund."


Related Stories:

• Harry Reid, Mike Lee Caught Up in Corruption Probe
• Harry Reid: 'I'm Not Afraid of the Koch Brothers

© 2014 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Dirty Harry Reid Runs Senate Like His Own Empire And Manipulates Government Agencies For His Own Benefit.

Report: Harry Reid Personally Intervened To Reverse Visa Denials For Asian Finanicers Of Vegas Development Project – A Project Retaining The Services Of Son Rory’s Law Firm

December 12, 2013 by Ben Bullard

 48 19

 5 163

“This one is going to be a major headache for us all because Sen. Reid’s office/staff is pushing hard and I just had a long yelling match on the phone.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) legislative affairs official Miguel Rodriguez wrote those words one year ago, steadying himself against the corrupt favor call-in he’d allegedly just been handed down from on high.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had suddenly become interested in the visa status of several Asian investors in the SLS Hotel, an in-process Las Vegas casino redevelopment known, in its Rat-Pack heyday, as the Sahara.

The urban redevelopment project centering on the SLS Hotel is served by the law firm of Lionel, Sawyer & Collins. One of that firm’s shareholders – and a key part of the SLS redevelopment project – is lawyer, former Clark County Commissioner and failed Nevada gubernatorial aspirant Rory Reid.

Rory Reid is also the son of Senator Harry Reid.

The Asian investors attached to the SLS project had applied for visas, but SLS’ efforts at swiftly expediting their applications instead ended in an unequivocal rejection, with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security declaring the case did not meet criteria for an expedited decision.

According to The Washington Times, which first reported Tuesday on the political connections behind Senator Reid’s intervention with the visa process, “The decision, dated Dec. 17, 2012, stated flatly that ‘there is no appeal or reconsideration of this decision.’”

The Times’ riveting story, which did not mention Rory Reid or his law firm by name, opened a floodgate of fresh diligence from news outlets eager to take their own peek into the political background of the SLS project.

What Nevada journalist Jon Ralston quickly found was Rory Reid.

From Ralston|Reports Thursday:

The SLS hotel/casino, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went out of his way to help, is represented by his son, Rory Reid.

One day after The Washington Times reported that the majority leader had pushed Homeland Security officials to overrule a decision not to award visas to Asian investors in the SLS (where The Sahara once stood), I discovered that Reid’s son was representing the owners at the same time this was occurring in 2012. The majority leader’s office portrayed his intervention, as expected, as Reid just doing his job to help create jobs. But did his son push him to intervene?

Reid’s office says no. “The SLS project creates nearly 9,000 badly needed jobs and has the support of Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval,” the majority leader’s spokeswoman, Kristen Orthman, told me. “That is the calculus in Sen. Reid’s support of the project. We have a long-standing office policy that strictly bars any member of the staff’s family or the Senator’s family from lobbying our office on behalf of their clients. That policy applies in this case.”

How does it apply in this case? More to the point, how is that particular standing policy even the one in question? Sure, Rory Reid doesn’t have to pick up his smart phone and txt his dad abt his prblmz wit SLS prjct, but why on Earth would he have to? Orthman said nothing in theRalston story about Senator Reid’s office having a standing policy that prohibits the Senator from meddling in the affairs of cabinet-level offices on behalf of his son.

If the Times’ email sources tell the whole story, Senator Reid expressly intervened to get a DHS decision reversed:

But that [flat visa rejection] simply prompted Mr. Reid to personally reach out to the top official at USCIS, Alejandro “Ali” Mayorkas, setting into motion a process that consumed top political officials inside the Homeland Security and Commerce departments and ultimately resulted in a ruling that granted expedited status to the hotel over the objections of career officials.

“Ali had a call with Sen. Reid on these I-526 cases on Tuesday of this week,” Mr. Rodriguez wrote top officials on Jan. 11. “While no guarantees were made on the call, Ali did promise the Senator that USCIS would take a ‘fresh look’ at the expedited request.”

Government officials did a lot more than give a fresh look — forwarding from Mr. Reid’s office the names of people involved with the hotel project that could help the federal agency change its mind on the expedited status request. Mr. Reid’s staff repeatedly made the case that the hotel would lose its potential funding for its renovation if Homeland Security’s USCIS didn’t expedite the visas.

Orthman cited 9,000 reasons – “badly needed jobs” – as well as the prior support of Nevada’s Republican Governor to suggest a justification for Senator Reid’s sudden involvement. There are, perhaps, at least 300 million more reasons she didn’t cite: the $300 million financial instrument Rory Reid’s firm helped SLS secure, either in part or in whole, through the Asian investors – financial backers whose visa status dictated whether their money “could be brought into the country and paired with the JP Morgan financing to underwrite the renovation of the hotel,” according to the emails obtained by The Washington Times.