McCain Pushed Regulators on Land Swap

McClatchy reports that John McCain pushed regulators to support a land swap deal despite a pledge to never again intervene with regulators after his brush with corruption in the Savings & Loan scandal. The deal would have benefited owners of the Spur Cross Ranch, including a company ran by a former associate of Charles Keating, the S&L head at the center of the scandal.

Years after he resurrected his political fortunes from the Keating Five savings and loan investigation, John McCain promoted an Arizona land swap that would've benefited a former mentor and partner of the scandal's central figure.

The owners of the Spur Cross Ranch, a dramatic 2,154-acre tract of Sonoran desert just north of Phoenix, in the late 1990s sought to sell it to a developer who planned to build a premier golf course surrounded by 390 luxury homes.

Nearby residents and environmentalists, however, wanted to preserve the area's unusual cacti, stone formations and hundreds of Hopi Indian tribal artifacts.

After opposition surfaced, the developer sought McCain's help in forging a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service — a deal that also would benefit the owners of the ranch, including a company controlled by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., an associate of S&L chief Charles H. Keating.

McCain and an aide pushed for the exchange in more than a half dozen sometimes-testy letters and phone calls up and down the Forest Service's hierarchy, according to former agency officials and correspondence. McCain's office even circulated draft legislation that would have overridden the agency's objection to surrendering national forest land. Ultimately, the deal fell apart.

McCain's behind-the-scenes maneuvering on Spur Cross contrasts with his image as a congressional ethics champion and his pledge — made after the Keating scandal in 1991 sullied his reputation — never to intervene with regulators again.

John McCain's broken promise on intervention with regulators should not come as any surprise. McCain's lawyer during the scandal, John Dowd, claimed that McCain didn't do anything wrong in the Keating Five -- reversing nearly 20 years of self-recriminations and repentance.

Just more evidence that John McCain is more of the same last eight years.

Comments (1) «

This is one more thing that should be brought to the attention of the mainstream press not just on this blog,all Democrats already know how involved John McCain was in the savings and loan debacle. Most Americans have already forgotten and need to be reminded especially since McCain/Palin keep bring up the Bill Ayers thing.

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superbiker on October 28, 2008 at 07:21 PM

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