Harry Reid earns a spot on list of most corrupt politicians

It should come as no surprise to anyone in Nevada who was followed the news in 2012 that Harry Reid was named by Judicial Watch, a public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, to its 2012 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The group lists the top 10 alphabetically so there is no way to tell if Harry was No. 1 or No. 10.

Here is what Judicial Watch said earned Harry a spot on the dishonor role:

A July 30, 2012, headline in the Las Vegas Review-Journal alerted Nevadans to Sen. Harry Reid’s latest influence-peddling scandal – this one involving ENN Energy Group, a Chinese “green energy” client of the Nevada law firm of which Reid’s son, Rory, is a principal.

Harry at ENN facility in China

As Reuter’s reported on August 31, 2012, “Reid has been one of the project’s most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada. His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.”

“Well below appraised value” is a considerable understatement. The deal Rory Reid put together for the firm his dad brought to town saw ENN purchase the site for just $4.5 million – a mere fraction of separate appraisals that valued the property at $29.6 million and $38.6 million. Even with all of that, however, the project has failed to move forward as rapidly as Harry and Rory Reid would like – for the simple reason that there is currently no market in Nevada for the green energy ENN claims it could produce.

But, of course, funneling money to the Reid family is nothing new for the Senate Majority Leader. As the Washington Postreported in a February 7, 2012, story titled “Public projects, private interests:”

In 2004 and 2005, the Senate majority leader secured $21.5 million to build a bridge over the Colorado River, linking the gambling resort town of Laughlin, Nev., with Bullhead City, Ariz. Reid owns 160 acres of undeveloped land in Bullhead City.

And according to Peter Schweizer, writing for Fox News on December 12, 2012, “Sen. Reid has sponsored at least $47 million in earmarks that directly benefitted organizations that one of his sons, Key Reid, [RW1] either lobbies for or is affiliated with.

Needless to say, the well-entrenched Sen. Reid has been a repeat Top Ten offender.

The $47 million in earmarks for clients of Key Reid is probably the only item you might’ve missed.

The rest, as they say, was in all the papers — and on certain blogs.

Judicial Watch overlooked Harry’s pressing for a wind energy project in his hometown of Searchlight that miraculously eliminated in its second phase plans for any windmills anywhere near Harry’s home.

Nor did they mention his bald-faced claim that Mitt Romney paid no income taxes, nor his rubberstamping Obama’s recess appointments while the Senate was not in recess, nor throwing overboard his constituents in Ely by abandoning support for its airport subsidy, nor his lambasting of critics of his nuclear regulatory appointee, nor the fact his Senate hasn’t passed a budget in three years, nor his flip-flops on Social Security and immigration, nor his criticism of a Republican congressional candidate over a real estate deal gone bad when half his constituents are underwater on their mortgages, nor his accusing a fellow Mormon of sullying the religion while he embraces gay marriage, nor his blocking a land bill that would create 800 jobs because his environmentalist buddies wanted a wilderness area in exchange, nor his effort to gag Republicans by changing filibuster rules.

Others who made Judicial Watch’s top 10 include: Obama, Hillary Clinton, Energy Secretary Chu, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Attorney General Eric Holder and assorted congresscritters.