HOW BIG A CROOK IS HARRY REID?

"Born in the small rural mining town of Searchlight (on Dec. 2, 1939), (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid grew up in a small cabin without indoor plumbing, and attended a two-room elementary school," his official biography says.

"His father was a hard rock miner with an eighth grade education and his mother never completed high school; yet, the youngest of Harry and Inez Reid’s four sons would go on to achieve the American dream."

Sen. Reid has a net worth between $2.57 million and $6.28 million, according to the personal financial disclosure form he filed with the Senate in 2012.

Amassing a fortune of that size is a remarkable feat for someone who has spent all but two years of his working life in "public service."

After graduating from law school in 1964, Sen. Reid spent two years as the city attorney in Henderson, four in the Nevada state Assembly. He was Nevada’s Lt. Governor from 1971 to 1975, chaired the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1977 through 1982, the year he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986.

Sen. Reid would have had to sock away about $107,000 in each of the 43 years since his election to the Nevada Assembly, estimated Mark Noonan of Nevada News & Views. For most of those years, his salary was less than that.

As Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Reid earns $193,400. But when he was elected to Congress in 1982, federal lawmakers were paid just $69,800.

The chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission earns $55,000, Nevada’s lieutenant governor $60,000. Salaries were lower when Sen. Reid held those offices.

Sen. Reid’s achievement is all the more astonishing because he put five children through college while he was amassing his fortune.

Sen. Reid attributes his success to the "lessons and values" he learned growing up in Searchlight, and to "a very good job investing."

Here’s an example: Sen. Reid put an $18 million "earmark" in the FY 2005 transportation bill to build a bridge across the Colorado river between Bullhead City, Arizona and Laughlin, Nevada, even though this wasn’t a priority for the transportation departments in either state. The bridge produced a windfall for the owner of 160 acres of undeveloped land adjacent to it in Bullhead City.

Sen. Reid bought the land in 2002 for $10,000 from a pension fund controlled by Las Vegas lubricants distributor Clair Haycock. Six months later, he introduced legislation that would benefit Mr. Haycock’s business. It’s now worth up to $10 million, the most valuable asset listed on his financial disclosure form.

"In Nevada, the name to know is Reid" headlined a Los Angeles Times story about a Reid bill in 2002 which, he told his colleagues, was a measure to protect the environment.

"What Reid did not explain was that the bill promised a cavalcade of benefits to real estate developers, corporations and local institutions that were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying fees to his sons’ and son-in-law’s firms, federal lobbyist reports show," wrote reporters Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper.

"Sen. Reid has sponsored at least $47 million in earmarks that directly benefited organizations that one of his sons either lobbies for or is affiliated with," Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, wrote in 2012.

In a pattern repeated over and over, a "renewable" energy firm seeking to build on public land hires Sen. Reid’s sons or son in law for lobbying or legal work, and makes campaign contributions to him. Sen. Reid backs taxpayer subsidies and obtains environmental waivers for the project.

Real estate billionaire Harvey Whittemore — who Sen. Reid helped acquire 10,000 acres of public land set aside for the desert tortoise — was convicted last year of making illegal contributions to him.

The Obama Justice department has blocked an FBI investigation of illegal contributions from online poker interests to Sens. Reid and Mike Lee, R-UT, ABC News reported in March.

Sen. Reid has accepted illegal gifts; used campaign funds to buy gifts for his children, and — according to Utah businessman Jeremy Johnson — taken a bribe to quash a federal investigation. He routinely makes Judicial Watch’s annual list of the ten most corrupt politicians in Washington.

Who knew you could learn so much about influence peddling growing up in Searchlight, Nevada?

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Discuss this item on the forums. Click Here!