The Keating Five was the corruption scandal that was a part of the larger Savings and Loan failure of the 1980s, and John McCain had a role in it back then. He claims to have learned lessons from that scandal, but if he has, he certainly isn’t showing it, based on how he treats one of his largest campaign contributors, Donald Diamond.
Back in April 2008, and it’s worth bringing this article back up, the New York Times reported on the questionable dealings John McCain has had with Mr. Diamond, a real estate developer from Arizona.
When Mr. Diamond wanted to buy land at the base, Fort Ord, Mr. McCain
assigned an aide who set up a meeting at the Pentagon and later stepped
in again to help speed up the sale, according to people involved and a
deposition Mr. Diamond gave for a related lawsuit. When he appealed to
a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former
base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain’s endorsement as “a close
personal friend.”
and
A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite
fund-raisers Mr. McCain’s current presidential campaign calls
Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far. At home, Mr.
Diamond is sometimes referred to as “The Donald,” Arizona’s answer to Donald Trump
— an outsized personality who invites public officials aboard his
flotilla of yachts (the Ace, King, Jack and Queen of Diamonds),
specializes in deals with the government, and unabashedly solicits
support for his business interests from the recipients of his campaign contributions.Mr. McCain has occasionally rebuffed Mr. Diamond’s entreaties as
inappropriate, but he has also taken steps that benefited his friend’s
real estate empire. Their 26-year relationship illuminates how Mr.
McCain weighs requests from a benefactor against his vows, adopted
after a brush with scandal two decades ago, not to intercede with
government authorities on behalf of a donor or take other official
action that serves no clear public interest.In California, the
McCain aide’s assistance with the Army helped Mr. Diamond complete a
purchase in 1999 that he soon turned over for a $20 million profit. And
Mr. McCain’s letter of recommendation reinforced Mr. Diamond’s selling
point about his McCain connections as he pursued — and won in 2005 — a
potentially much more lucrative deal to develop a resort hotel and
luxury housing.
It makes you wonder how McCain can look himself in the mirror. John McCain sold his integrity up the river a long time ago, and he never tried to buy it back.
angry
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