FEDS CLOSING IN ON ANOTHER REPUBLICAN CROOKED CONGRESSMAN-- MEET RICK RENZI (AZ-01)

One contest I'm not entering is the one that ask for guesses as to the order in which Republican congressmen get indicted after November 7. Of course Jerry Lewis, John Doolittle and Curt Weldon have to be big favorites because it's already been leaked-- to put it mildly-- that investigations of these serial crooks are in full swing. But don't count out Don Young, Denny Hastert, Ken Calvert, Dirty Dick Pombo, Tom Feeney or any number of these lawbreaking lawmakers.

In fact, as I mentioned last weekend, Rick Renzi (R-AZ) has been pushing his slimy way to the top of the list. Today's New York Times splashes across its pages the story that has been roiling Arizona politics all week, namely that Renzi, in a tight, tight re-election bid against Ellen Simon, is being investigated by the Feds for some shady dealing to benefit family members. (Renzi isn't be investigated for being a shameless corporate whore who has consistently ignored the interests of his eastern Arizona constituents in order to line his own pockets with legalized bribes from Big Business.)


Tuesday it was announced that the Feds are investigating Renzi, who has a long record of shady dealings, mostly involving real estate manipulation, because he introduced legislation that benefited a military contractor where his father is executive vice president. The Virginia company Renzi was so eager to help out also helps him. According to the Times ManTech employees "were the largest contributors to Mr. Renzi’s campaign in 2002 and the second-largest in 2004."

Renzi is a Republican so, of course, he denies all wrong doing-- like DeLay, Cunningham, Ney, Abramoff, Foley, etc. He has also denied wrong-doing when it came to light that he was pressuring landowners to buy a 480 acre parcel from one of his cronies, Jim Sandlin in a complex deal where he told developers that he would get the private land swapped for federally-owned public land as long as Sandlin was included in the deal. Sandlin netted a nice $3 million profit and then Renzi renegged and screwed the developers. People in the district are starting to get sick of Renzi and his self-serving shenanigans. Last week's Majority Watch poll-- even before the ManTech scandal broke-- showed Simon beating him 50-46%.