WP editorial hits Reid's "nondisclosure"

[DeepModem Mom]

Mr. Reid's Nondisclosure
The Senate minority leader's incomplete financial filings
Friday, October 13, 2006; Page A28

THE BEST CASE for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is that he was sloppy about financial disclosure rules in accounting for a real estate deal on which he made a $700,000 profit. The more unattractive case is that the senator's inaccurate description of the investment was an effort to disguise his partnership with a Las Vegas lawyer who's never been charged with wrongdoing but whose name has surfaced in federal investigations involving organized crime, casinos and political bribery since the 1980s. As of now, the evidence points toward sloppiness; Mr. Reid's friendship with Jay Brown isn't exactly a secret in the state. But either way, an Associated Press report about Mr. Reid's dealings doesn't cast the senator in an attractive light. Neither does his response to the AP story, which indicates a casual disregard for the importance of accurate reporting of lawmakers' financial affairs.

Mr. Reid bought undeveloped property on the outskirts of fast-growing Las Vegas for about $400,000 in 1998 -- one parcel outright and a second jointly with Mr. Brown. In 2001, Mr. Reid sold the land for the same price to a corporation he co-owned with Mr. Brown, who in the meantime was getting the land rezoned from residential to commercial use. But the senator didn't report the sale on his annual financial disclosure form. When the new company sold the land to developers in 2004, yielding $1.1 million for Mr. Reid, the senator did not accurately list the transaction or go back and fix the previous forms to reflect the new arrangement....

***

Mr. Reid's professions of transparency and full disclosure are transparently wrong. His investment was not reported in a manner that made clear his partnership with Mr. Brown. It's true -- under the inadequate financial disclosure rules -- that even if Mr. Reid had listed the newly formed corporation, Patrick Lane LLC, that wouldn't have by itself demonstrated Mr. Brown's involvement. Nonetheless, that Mr. Reid no longer owned the land, but instead had sold it for an interest in the Patrick Lane corporation, was not some mere "technical change," as the senator would like to brush it off. It's an essential element of financial disclosure rules, the purpose of which is to know how and with whom public officials are financially entwined.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101201486.html?nav=most_emailed

[Kagemusha]

1. Considering the junk WP editorials can throw out, "sloppy" is fair

But sloppy, given the massive amounts of willful wrongdoing in congress, is a pathetically unimportant story. The reporting will be corrected and life will move on. There's so much worse that it's almost funny.

[gumby]

2. Another instance proving the M$M irrelevant.

Puleeze, the WaPo is seriously in the toilet.

This is "Whitewater" all over again.

edit: the wacknuts are desperate to prove "they're all the same." Even the right-wing radionazis can't seem to make this one fly... other than another notch in their fabricated "history," which is really important in the 'big picture.'

[Ignacio Upton]

3. Reid should beat the shit out of that liar John Solomon

I'll mail a baseball bat to him to do it.

[tblue]

4. Reid had a business deal with someone who never was even charged

with any wrongdoing. Yep, Whitewater II.

Sounds like he erred by not disclosing the deal, but it hardly sounds like some huge case of corruption. Pretty pathetic as far as 'scandals' go. Is that all they got???!

[Gothmog]

5. Contribution of property to LLC is not a sale

The premise of the idiotic article by Solomon of the AP is that Senator Reid hid the sale by not reporting the sale of the property into the limited liability company. That is completely bogus. The contribution of property into a partnership or limited liability company (which is normally taxed as a partnership) is tax free and is not a sale. Senator Reid reported that he owned the property and reported the gain on the sale. I doubt that there is a reporting requirement for non sale or not taxable events and so the whole claim is bogus.