Harry Mason Reid

Harry Mason Reid is a traitor.

Harry Mason Reid is a traitor.

Harry Mason Reid is a traitor.

A July 30, 2012, headline in the Las Vegas Review-Journal alerted Nevadans to Senator Harry Reid’s latest influence-peddling scandal – this one involving ENN Energy Group, a Chinese “green energy” client of the Nevada law firm of which Reid’s son, Rory, is a principal.

As Reuter’s reported on August 31, 2012, “Reid has been one of the project’s most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada. His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.”

“Well below appraised value” is a considerable understatement. The deal Rory Reid put together for the firm his dad brought to town saw ENN purchase the site for just $4.5 million – a mere fraction of separate appraisals that valued the property at $29.6 million and $38.6 million. Even with all of that, however, the project has failed to move forward as rapidly as Harry and Rory Reid would like – for the simple reason that there is currently no market in Nevada for the green energy ENN claims it could produce.

But, of course, funneling money to the Reid family is nothing new for the Senate Majority Leader. As the Washington Post reported in a February 7, 2012, story titled “Public projects, private interests:”

In 2004 and 2005, the Senate majority leader secured $21.5 million to build a bridge over the Colorado River, linking the gambling resort town of Laughlin, Nev., with Bullhead City, Ariz. Reid owns 160 acres of undeveloped land in Bullhead City.

And according to Peter Schweizer, writing for Fox News on December 12, 2012, “Sen. Reid has sponsored at least $47 million in earmarks that directly benefitted organizations that one of his sons, Key Reid, [RW1] either lobbies for or is affiliated with.

Needless to say, the well-entrenched Senator Reid has been a repeat offender.


UPDATE: March 14, 2014

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2013.

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV):

Last year, Harry Reid made the Judicial Watch Ten Worst list for his influence-peddling scandal involving ENN Energy Group, a Chinese “green energy” company for which Reid “applied his political muscle” – and which just happened to be a major client of the Nevada law firm in which Reid’s son, Rory, is a principal.

This year Reid makes the Ten Worst list again. His “friends” list is examined by Frontpage.com:

On Monday, Harry Reid’s close friend and donor, Harvey Whittemore was sentenced to two years in prison for funneling more than $130,000 in illegal campaign funds to Sen. Harry Reid’s re-election committee in 2007 …

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, Reid and Whittemore go way back; four of Reid’s sons were hired by the law firm in which Harvey Whittemore was a senior partner. Sen. Reid and Whittemore were involved in very big land deals, including federal legislation to help the development of Coyote Springs.

None of which is surprising, since Reid has long-since made funneling money to his family’s enterprises his stock-in-trade. According to Peter Schweizer, writing for Fox News, “Sen. Reid has sponsored at least $47 million in earmarks that directly benefitted organizations that one of his sons, Key Reid, [RW1] either lobbies for or is affiliated with.”

While not teaming up with family members to fleece taxpayers, Reid was teaming up with President Obama to use executive authority to skirt the law. Obama and Reid have long opposed a proposed nuclear waste dump in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which has already cost U.S. taxpayers an astounding $15 billion, according to various federal audits. So, Obama simply instructed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission(NRC) to decline to conduct the statutorily mandated Yucca Mountain licensing process, essentially destroying the project.

In mid-August, a federal appellate court ruled that Obama “is simply flouting the law.” According to the court, “It is no overstatement to say that our constitutional system of separation of powers would be significantly altered if we were to allow executive and independent agencies to disregard federal law in the manner asserted in this case by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”

Topping off the year, on November 21, 2013, – a day which should live in congressional infamy – Reid gutted the long-standing filibuster rules of the U.S. Senate in order to grease the path for Barack Obama’s court appointees. The new Reid rule prevents the minority party from filibustering any nominations other than nods to the Supreme Court. And to effect the change, Reid first triggered the “nuclear option,” which allows a change to Senate rules by majority vote (and which he had adamantly opposed in 2005, calling it “illegal” and “unAmerican”). Minority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Reid of attempting “break the rules of the Senate … in order to change the rules of the Senate.” Not surprisingly, as the Wall Street Journal editorialized, an ancillary benefit of the rule change is that it will get judges on the DC Court of Appeals who are more friendly to Reid’s agenda.


UPDATE: April 22, 2015

‘I’ve Never Seen Anything So Abhorrent in My Life’: Dana Perino names Harry Reid the most ‘Poisonous Figure’ in D.C.

Fox News host Dana Perino unloaded on Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Tuesday, calling him a “destructive entity” in Washington, D.C.

Perino, who served as press secretary for President George W. Bush, was reacting to a jab Reid took at her former boss Monday.

“I think a lot of the dysfunction in Washington can be traced directly to his doorstep,” she continued. “I think it is very good for the country, for the world, and especially for the Democrats that Harry Reid is retiring. I’ve never seen anything so abhorrent in my life as Harry Reid.”

“He’s an absolutely poisonous figure in Washington, D.C. He’s been a disaster for this country,” Perino told host Hugh Hewitt.

“And he is an equal opportunity basher, right? He goes after everybody,” Perino added. “And I think it is so frankly disgusting, and I’m a pretty level-headed person. But that person, Harry Reid, has been the most destructive entity in Washington when it comes to stability. By far.”