Poof: Casino ethics complaint against Reid disappears
By Paul Bedard | October 28, 2014 | 3:58 pm
Nobody is saying “cover-up” just yet, but an ethics complaint against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid received by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics nearly a year ago has mysteriously disappeared, and the panel claims it never received it despite a signed receipt.
The conservative watchdog group Cause of Action said that it has had to refile the complaint that alleges Reid pressured the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to hasten EB-5 visa application reviews for overseas investors in the SLS Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
The group said that Reid’s son Rory and his law firm, Lionel, Sawyer & Collins P.C., were the lawyers for SLS, raising potential conflicts.
According to a letter provided to Secrets, the group sent the original complaint on Oct. 16, 2013. It said that the Senate Ethics Committee received it Dec. 20, and it provided the receipt to prove it.
The committee has been rocked with negative media reporters about poor management, prompting Cause of Action to say sarcastically, “the notion that committee staff may have lost or otherwise misplaced Cause of Action’s complaint against the majority leader is plausible. However, the available evidence contradicts the committee’s claim.”
The group has ties to Koch Industries, a Reid critic.
For good measure, Cause of Action re-sent it’s original letter and provided the basic charge:
“It alleges that Senator Reid violated the Senate’s ethics rules and suggests that the EB-5 visa program, designed to help create jobs for American workers, may be a vehicle for moving foreign money of uncertain provenance into the United States to benefit politicians and their cronies.”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/poof-casino-ethics-complaint-against-reid-disappears/article/2555366
