Federal prosecutors questioned staffers of Sen. John McCain as part of their corruption investigation of Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ).

U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Diane J. Humetewa and fellow prosecutors disclosed the interviews with aides for McCain and fellow Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl in a written response to Renzi's attorneys, who asked for the contents of the interview to help prepare for Renzi's upcoming trial, which is scheduled for October.

The aides were interviewed about land exchanges, according to an April letter from Humetewa filed with the U.S. District Court of Arizona late last week. The letter did not indicate when the interviews occurred.

A federal land swap critical to developing a $3 billion copper mine southeast of Phoenix is at the heart of the case against Renzi, who is facing 35 public corruption charges, including conspiracy, money-laundering, extortion and insurance fraud. Renzi is retiring at the end of this session.

The feds have also requested some documents from McCain, which as of April 14 they had not received.

From The Hill:

FBI wiretaps picked up the voices of several members of Congress in their conversations with Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.).

The House General Counsel’s office recently notified those members after the Department of Justice (DOJ) told the House lawyers that the lawmakers’ voices had been intercepted during the FBI’s investigation of Renzi’s land deal, according to three GOP sources.

It is unclear which members were taped and whether Renzi’s home, office, and/or cell phones were tapped. And there is no indication of alleged wrongdoing by any member other than Renzi; the Renzi indictment does not mention or allude to other legislators and the use of wiretaps is not mentioned in it.

Nevertheless, as the prosecution of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) has made apparent, any criminal matter involving lawmakers is thorny. So any use of the wiretaps at the trial is likely to be the subject of a protracted legal battle involving Constitutional issues.

It's partly because of such issues, no doubt, that Renzi's trial has been pushed back from its original scheduled start this month until October.

From CQ:

Embattled Rep. Rick Renzi , R-Ariz., has asked a federal judge in Arizona to delay his scheduled April 29 trial on conspiracy, fraud, extortion and money laundering charges stemming from a land-swap deal.

Prosecutors will not oppose the Arizona lawmaker’s bid to have his trial deemed a “complex case,” which would allow more time to sort out motions, discovery and other pre-trial issues.

Renzi’s lawyers also said that because he is a sitting congressman who faces allegations related to his legislative activities, they would raise the issue of legislative privilege afforded by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause.

Justin over at ABC has more on that insurance fraud part of last month's indictment against Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ ):

Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., allegedly defrauded dozens of pro-life organizations for hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund his first congressional bid, according to an analysis of the recent indictment against him, a state insurance claim and an interview with an insurance lawyer involved in the case....

Renzi has positioned himself as staunchly anti-abortion. "The sanctity of human life should always be upheld, and I will continue to fight for the rights of the unborn in Congress," he said in 2003, as a freshman U.S. representative. In 2006, Renzi received a 100 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee for his voting record.

Renzi may have embezzled client premiums from "roughly 50 pro-life organizations in 'a multitude' of states" through his insurance company, Justin reports.

From the AP:

Rep. Rick Renzi pleaded not guilty Tuesday to all charges in a federal indictment accusing him of abusing his office for financial gain and for raising campaign funds by embezzling insurance premiums collected by his family's firm....

Renzi, a Republican who announced last year that he would not be seeking a fourth term, spoke briefly with reporters after his court appearance.

"I have a lot of faith in my attorneys," Renzi said. "I'll be OK."...

Defense lawyer Reid Weingarten cautioned against a rush to judgment and said Renzi will stay in office. Trial is set for April 29, and Weingarten said the defense was "not going to drag our feet."

An April trial would be a remarkably quick turnaround for such a complicated and weighty case -- especially considering that the other pending indictment against a sitting lawmaker, which came down last June against Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), has been tied up for months in appeals involving Constitutional issues.

From The Hill:

National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chairman Tom Cole declined to call publicly for Rep. Rick Renzi’s (R-Ariz.) resignation on Monday, saying his friend is innocent until proven guilty....

“I think he’s got every right to do what he thinks,” Cole said. “I guess I believe in the American legal system. You’re allowed to go argue your case. I don’t tell people that they ought to resign, and I wouldn’t share that kind of discussion, honestly, in a public venue anyway.

“At the end of the day, Rick says he’s innocent. Rick’s going to argue that case. He has the right to do that,” Cole said.

If Renzi were to bow out before May 4th, it would force a special election, but if he sticks it out past then and then resigns, the seat would remain vacant until November. In any case, Renzi himself is in no hurry to leave, and his case is unlikely to go to trial for many, many months.

Actually, it's nothing at all:

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct voted today to form an investigative subcommittee to probe whether indicted Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) has violated the chamber's Code of Official Conduct....

Based on recent precedent, it is likely the panel will defer most further proceedings out of deference to the Justice Department's prosecution of Renzi, who is scheduled to be arraigned in Tuscon March 6th.

Just another sign that with the House ethics committee playing possum, the FBI has been forced to take up the slack.

Meanwhile, prospects for reform aren't looking too bright.

Update: CREW's Melanie Sloan has a bright idea: "The trick would be for the Ethics Committee to spearhead an investigation of a member alleged to have engaged in misconduct before the Justice Department gets involved."

From Justin over at ABC:

Thirty-five counts won't keep Rick Renzi down.

The Arizona congressman will not step down in the face of a federal indictment handed down last Friday, he announced in a press release late Monday evening.

"“I will not resign and take on the cloak of guilt because I am innocent," the statement read. "My legal team. . .will handle these legal issues while I continue to serve my constituents."

Renzi is scheduled to be arraigned on March 6th.

Rep. Rick Renzi's (R-AZ) case is moving along, with the judge setting an arraignment date for March 6th.

Renzi's lawyers have said that he's innocent and will plead not guilty. The judge also set a trial date for April 29th (a date one would expect to be pushed back).

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) began a push for Renzi to resign on Friday, but for now, at least, he seems to be laying low.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) had more forceful words than John McCain's for Rick Renzi:

"The charges contained in this indictment are completely unacceptable for a member of Congress, and I strongly urge Rep. Renzi to seriously consider whether he can continue to effectively represent his constituents under these circumstances."

As we mentioned earlier, Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) is one of two dozen co-chairs of John McCain's campaign in Arizona. When reporters asked him today what he thought about Renzi's indictment, he seems to have gotten a little tongue-tied. From the AP:

McCain seemed surprised when asked in Indianapolis for his reaction to the indictment, choosing his words carefully, shaking his head and speaking slowly.

"I'm sorry. I feel for the family; as you know, he has 12 children," McCain told reporters on the presidential campaign trail. "But I don't know enough of the details to make a judgment. These kinds of things are always very unfortunate. ... I rely on our Department of Justice and system of justice to make the right outcome."

While the timing of the indictment might have been a surprise, it should not have been unexpected. The federal investigation of Renzi was first reported in the fall of 2006. The FBI raided his wife's office in April of 2007.

Back then, as Renzi was pressured to resign from all three of his committee assignments. He did. He was also pressured to resign. McCain refused to join in those calls -- and also expressed a similar ignorance about the case, the details of which had been widely reported:

When asked Wednesday if the embattled Renzi would continue to play a part in his campaign, McCain said: "Look, Rick obviously has got great difficulties now. I know nothing about his case. He's in my prayers. He's in my prayers. And that's all I'm going to say. All this stuff will come out."

Well, now it's finally come out. And it's still unclear as of right now whether Renzi will continue to play a part in the campaign.

From the AP:

Republican Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges related to a land deal in Arizona.

A 26-page federal indictment unsealed in Arizona accuses Renzi and two former business partners of conspiring to promote the sale of land that buyers could swap for property owned by the federal government. The sale netted one of Renzi's former partners $4.5 million.

Here's the indictment.

Update: The charges boil down to this, basically. Renzi (who's already said he won't seek re-election) is charged with doing everything he can as a congressman to strong-arm others into buying land from his buddy James Sandlin -- Sandlin then allegedly kicked back sizable chunks of cash back to Renzi in a series of complicated financial transactions (thus the money laundering charge). The main details of these charges were reported by the Arizona papers and The Wall Street Journal last year.

Update: Yikes. In a completely separate matter, the indictment charges Renzi with a conspiracy to "embezzle and misappropriate client premiums [from his insurance company] to fund his congressional campaign."

Update: It's worth recalling that the Renzi case played a small role in the U.S. attorneys' firings scandal. One of the fired U.S. attorneys was Arizona's Paul Charlton. The investigation dates way back to June of 2005, but it did not surface publicly under shortly before the 2006 midterm elections. Renzi's people, obviously, weren't happy, and an aide to Renzi put in a call to Charlton (who in turn reported the contact to the Justice Department leadership).

And the Wall Street Journal later reported that investigators and prosecutors in Arizona had been frustrated with senior Justice Department officials' general reluctance to pursue the investigation. The thrust of the piece was that the investigation had been slow-rolled in the run-up to the election.

Update: Renzi is, at least for the time being, a co-chair of John McCain's Arizona Leadership Team (he's one of 24 co-chairs). One imagines he won't be such a public advocate for McCain this election.

Recently, House lawmakers filed their third quarter campaign disclosure reports -- and you know what that means! It's time for another round-up of how much lawmakers have dropped on lawyers to defend themselves from investigation.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), with nearly $1 million in total fees dating back to last year, remains the undisputed House champion, but Rep. Don Young (R-AK) is charging hard.

Here's our list of legal spending habits for the past three months, as well as an estimate of how much each lawmaker has spent in campaign funds to date and to which firms:

Rep. Don Young (R-AK): $183,785
So far, Young has spent $447,000 on the law firms Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Tobin O'Connor Ewing & Richard (the vast majority of which is spent on Akin Gump). He's under investigation for his relationship with Bill Allen, former CEO of oil-services firm.

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ): $111,042
Renzi has paid around $148,000 to law firms Patton Boggs LLP and Steptoe & Johnson LLP (primarily on Patton Boggs). Renzi remains under investigation by the FBI for pushing legislation that would advantage political supporters and former business partners. His house was raided by the FBI this past April. Renzi has announced that he will not seek another term.

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV): $55,000
Mollohan has spent $78,000 on the law firm Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel. He has been under federal scrutiny since last May for earmarking funds for organizations connected to him.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA): $26,982
Lewis has spent over $987,000 on the law firms Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Williams & Jensen. He is being investigated for earmarks that he provided to campaign contributors, as well as his role in the Duke Cunningham scandal.

Read more »

From Roll Call:

Despite rumors to the contrary, embattled Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) issued two statements Friday insisting that he has no intention of resigning....

“For several weeks, I have been the subject of leaked stories, conjecture, and false attacks about a land exchange,” the three-term Congressman said. “None of them bear any resemblance to the truth, including the rumor that I am planning on resigning.”

From The Hill:

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) failed to disclose a $200,000 payment he received from a business partner in 2005 in apparent violation of House ethics rules. Prosecutors could use the omission as evidence that Renzi intended to conceal a transaction he knew to be controversial or even improper.

The $200,000 was a payment from James Sandlin to settle a debt related to a previous business transaction involving land in northeast Arizona, one of the lawmaker’s attorneys, Grant Woods, told a newspaper last week.

This explanation might have been expected to dispel suspicion that Sandlin gave Renzi an illegal gift in exchange for action Renzi took to help Sandlin sell a $4 million parcel of land.

But Renzi’s claim that Sandlin’s $200,000 payment was a legitimate business transaction is weakened by the fact that he failed to disclose it in his personal financial disclosure report for 2005 filed with the House clerk.

The revelations come fast and furious.

Last night, the AP reported that when the local press revealed that Rep. Rick Renzi's (R-AZ) was under investigation just weeks before the election, his top aide called U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton's aide to ask about it. Charlton was one of the U.S. attorneys who was fired little more than a month later. And even though Charlton's aide had reported the contact to the Justice Department (as the rules dictate), that report was not among the thousands of pages the Justice Department turned over to congressional investigators.

And now this. From The Wall Street Journal:

As midterm elections approached last November, federal investigators in Arizona faced unexpected obstacles in getting needed Justice Department approvals to advance a corruption investigation of Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, people close to the case said.

The delays, which postponed key approvals in the case until after the election, raise new questions about whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or other officials may have weighed political issues in some investigations....

Investigators pursuing the Renzi case had been seeking clearance from senior Justice Department officials on search warrants, subpoenas and other legal tools for a year before the election, people close to the case said....

...the investigation clearly moved slowly: Federal agents opened the case no later than June 2005, yet key witnesses didn't get subpoenas until early this year, those close to the case said. The first publicly known search -- a raid of a Renzi family business by the Federal Bureau of Investigation -- was carried out just last week....

...the Renzi case -- like many that involve members of Congress -- is being handled jointly by the local U.S. attorney and the department's public-integrity section. In such cases, a senior department official must approve requests for wiretaps and warrants and other formal legal steps.

There's another revelation in the piece: that investigators had lobbied Washington for clearance to tap Renzi's phone for months. That clearance was only given in October of last year. And unfortunately for the investigators, word broke of the investigation in late October -- disrupting their wiretap.

The allegations against Renzi are complicated, involving a land swap, allegedly channeling a kickback through a family company, etc. The Journal laid it all out in a piece this last weekend.

All this raises a question. The bosses at main Justice seem to have been similarly reluctant to proceed with regard to the Duke Cunningham probe. As TPM reported a couple of weeks ago, U.S. Attorney for San Diego Carol Lam had to wait sometimes for months for clearance on certain moves in her investigation. So is there a pattern here?

Continuing to backpedal after the FBI raided one of his family busineses last week, Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) said in a statement today that he'll be resigning "all my committee assignments." Renzi already resigned from his seat on the sensitive House Intelligence Committee last week. He also holds seats on the Committee on Financial Services and Committee on Natural Resources.

This past weekend, The Wall Street Journal detailed the tangled business dealings that have investigators probing whether Renzi received a kickback on a land deal.

Here's Renzi's full statement:

"For several weeks, I have been the subject of leaked stories, conjecture, and false attacks about a land exchange. None of them bear any resemblance to the truth.

"So that no one can question the motivation behind the land exchange, which I and other leaders from both parties have argued is critical to the future of Arizona, I have spoken to Congressman Pastor who will introduce a new version of the Resolution Copper land exchange. In addition, I will take a leave of absence from all my committee assignments. I will continue to focus on important district work and issues critical to my constituents."

Two scandals broke last night with Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) at their centers. At first glance they have nothing in common. But a closer look reveals the deals now under federal scrutiny pivot on two central issues: Arizona's fragile but important San Pedro River, and Renzi's remarkable ability to aid his supporters by manipulating the waterway's health.

In a nutshell: Renzi cut one deal in 2003 that helped take water out of the San Pedro River, financially benefiting a major political backer but potentially devastating to the waterway, which is said to be vital for millions of migratory birds. The congressman made a second deal deal in 2005 ostensibly put water back into the river -- and made millions for another major political supporter and onetime business partner. Both are now reportedly under federal scrutiny.

Did Renzi arrange the second deal to make up for the damage of the first? Or was he trying to seize a business opportunity he'd created? Did others come up with the deals, and Renzi simply helped out? Who knows. That may be what the feds are trying to puzzle out right now.

Read more »

On the heels of the Associated Press report comes news, courtesy of the New York Times, that Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) finds himself on the business end of yet another federal probe. This one isn't about land swaps at all, but about allegations Renzi used his power to benefit his dad's employer:

Federal authorities in Arizona have opened an inquiry into whether Representative Rick Renzi introduced legislation that benefited a military contractor that employs his father, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

The officials said the inquiry was at an early stage and that no search warrants had been issued, suggesting that investigators had yet to determine whether there was a basis to open a formal investigation or empanel a grand jury. . . .

Law enforcement officials said that the most serious accusation involved Mr. Renzi’s sponsorship of legislation in 2003 that appeared to indirectly benefit the ManTech International Corporation, a communications company based in Virginia that employs Mr. Renzi’s father, Eugene, a retired Army general, as executive vice president. . . . Employees of the company were the largest contributors to Mr. Renzi’s campaign in 2002 and the second-largest in 2004.

Associated Press reports:

A land deal involving Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., is being scrutinized by the U.S. attorney's office in Arizona, a law enforcement official in Washington said Tuesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity while the inquiry is ongoing, said the investigation has been under way for a few months and is still in its very early stages.

The AP could not confirm which land deal Renzi was involved with that drew the interest of a federal prosecutor, but the wire service indicates it is likely the 2005 land swap in which Renzi acted on behalf of a political backer and business partner.

The land swap, in which private investors traded parcels of land with the U.S. government, was first reported by the Phoenix (Ariz.) New Times Oct. 12. Renzi's lawyer told the AP the congressman "was not aware of any investigation," according to the article.

The federal investigation involving Renzi has been rumored for several days now, but the AP story is the first to confirm any involvement by federal investigators in Renzi's land schemes.