On Friday, February 22, Representative Rick Renzi, R-Arizona who is US Republican presidential hopeful and frontrunner John McCain’s campaign co-chair along with two business partners were indicted on extortion, money laundering, wire fraud, along with a bunch of other charges that revolved around a land deal that gave him thousands that came from payoffs.
Currently, Renzi is serving his third term in the United States House of Representatives. Last year, Renzi said that he would not run for a fourth term.
“Renzi was having financial difficulty throughout 2005 and needed a substantial infusion of funds to keep his insurance business solvent and to maintain his personal lifestyle,” the indictment on Renzi had explained.
It also accuses Renzi of abusing his position on the House Natural Resources Committee. The indictment had said that as a member of that committee, Renzi pushed the land swaps to his former business partner, James W. Sandlin. Sandlin was also charged.
This was not a recent investigation. The investigation on Rezni’s business has been going on for quite awhile.
However, McCain was careful in choosing his words.
This could possibly hurt McCain’s campaign. While McCain has a strong lead, Mike Huckabee’s refusal to drop out has forced him to retain focus on the primaries and caucuses instead of the general election. This scandal could give opponents the necessary ammo to use against McCain’s candidacy.
But, Renzi joins the statistic of scandals that have surrounded the GOP. While this revolves around money scams, in a sense it does sound of a lesser evil. Some of the major scandals within the Republican Party were sex-related such as Idaho Senator Larry Craig and Florida Representative Mark Foley.