Dirty Harry Plays Dirty

Shameless Harry Reid, the Democratic Party's Grim Reaper, is the least qualified person in America to lecture anyone on the issue of financial disclosure.  The Nevada senator has a dreary record of lapses in personal financial reporting and a checkered past of ethical blunders.

It was comical to watch the pompous Senate majority leader taunt Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney over a scurrilous charge that the former governor had not payed taxes for 10 years. Reid offered no proof, yet the mainstream media hounded Romney to answer the uncorroborated slur.

Romney placed the onus on the dour Reid, telling him to "put up or shut up."  Undeterred, Reid has continued to launch one salvo after another against Romney. The media has dutifully bandied the insinuation without bothering to shine a light on Reid's past ethical improprieties.

It is time for Romney to counterattack and there is plenty of ammunition at his disposal.

In 2006, Senator Reid was embroiled in a serious ethics scandal involving financial reporting.  He was forced to amend his personal filings with Congress over a Las Vegas land deal after news organizations got wind of the shadowy trail of ownership changes that went unreported.

The dubious transaction involved property that netted Reid a cool $1.1 million in 2004. The Democrat collected the tidy profit despite the fact he had not personally owned the property for three years. That raised the eyebrows of news organizations that reported at length on the business deal.

After the chicanery was exposed, Reid tried to cover his tracks.  He amended his ethics report with 42-pages of camouflage, admitting he had not disclosed salient facts about the original transaction.  In the filing, Reid also divulged that he had failed to report two other land deals to Congress.

Ethics attorneys at the time questioned whether Reid had violated Senate rules.  But he managed to sweep the whole sordid mess under a Congressional rug, where it has remained until now.

There have been other ethical issues nipping at Reid's heels. In 2006, Reid was linked to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  The Associated Press (AP) reported that Reid intervened in government matters at least five times to help Abramoff's Indian tribal clients.

In addition, Reid's staff "regularly had contact" with Abramoff's team about legislation affecting other clients.  Documents obtained by AP showed that Abramoff's lobbying partners billed for nearly two dozen contacts, phone calls and meetings with Reid's office in 2001 alone.

Reid piously claimed all that attention had no affect on his votes. Surely it was just coincidental too that Reid collected nearly $68,000 in donations from Abramoff's firm, lobbyists and clients.  A grateful Abramoff once threw a cozy fundraiser for Reid at his Washington office.

Hypocritical Harry even had the audacity to call for other lawmakers to come clean about their tainted relationships with Abramoff at a January 16, 2006 Washington news conference.

As he has always done, the officious Reid dodged an ethics investigation.  Meanwhile, Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud and bribery and earned jail time.

For dirty Harry Reid to call anyone on the carpet for ethical misconduct is the height of absurdity.  If Reid wants to spotlight blatant dishonesty, he needs to look no further than the nearest mirror.