The abbreviated version: McCain, while serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee helped his developer buddy acquire very expensive government land for a song.
I used to live in Monterey (while my ex was at the Naval Postgraduate School) so I find this story interesting. Earlier this year a report from the New York Times detailed the cozy relationship between McCain and good friend Donald R. Diamond, an Arizona developer.
A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite fund-raisers Mr. McCain’s current presidential campaign calls Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far. At home, Mr. Diamond is sometimes referred to as "The Donald," Arizona’s answer to Donald Trump — an outsized personality who invites public officials aboard his flotilla of yachts (the Ace, King, Jack and Queen of Diamonds), specializes in deals with the government, and unabashedly solicits support for his business interests from the recipients of his campaign contributions.
Kubla000 (as well as a few others) wrote a well received diary back when the NYTimes first reported on it. Unfortunately there wasn't much follow up in the tradmed and the story quickly died.
However, today a new article from the Monterey Herald (after obtaining an appraissel of the land in question through the freedom of information act), has brought it back up and I think it is a good time to revisit another in a long line of shady McCain dealings.
An Arizona businessman with help from Sen. John McCain's office paid the federal government a mere fraction of the market value when he bought a Fort Ord land parcel in 1999, an Army appraisal obtained by The Herald shows.
Donald R. Diamond, an 80-year-old real estate developer, lobbyist and top fundraiser for McCain's presidential campaign, bought the land for $250,000, though it was valued at $7.2 million, according to Pentagon appraisals made three years before the sale.
White Water and Rezko pales in comparison to this land deal, don't you think?
If you need any more confirmation that a McCain administration will just be an extenuation of the current corrupt Bush administration, you need look no further than this relationship.
We all know McCain has stacked his campaign with lobbyists but Diamond really takes the cake:
Besides being a leading developer in McCain's home state, he is a pro-Israel lobbyist in Washington, D.C., and is among the elite "innovators" group whose members have individually raised $500,000 or more for McCain's presidential bid, according to the candidate's campaign Web site.
Maybe now that McCain is foundering and the tradmed smells blood in the water, they will do a little more reporting on McCain's not so mavericky relationships with lobbyists.