Wikipedia entry for Rick Renzi

Rick Renzi

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In September 2006, Renzi was named one of the "20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress" in a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group founded in 2005 by former Democratic congressional staffers.^[23] Renzi was also listed in the first report by the organization in January 2006, when he was one of 13 named members. The organization said "His ethics issues stem from the outside income earned by his administrative assistant and from legislation he sponsored that benefitted his father" <sup>[24]

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2005 land swap

According to the Phoenix New Times, in 2002 Renzi sold off a half-interest in his real estate investment business to a fellow investor, James Sandlin, for $200,000. Renzi used the money for his 2002 congressional campaign. After Renzi was elected, he sold the remainder of the business to Sandlin, for somewhere between $1 million and $5 million.

In October 2005, three years after the business transaction with Sandlin, Renzi announced he'd be introducing a bill in Congress that would include a land swap of some land owned by Sandlin (not in Renzi's district) for federal land near Florence where a developer wanted to build. A week after Renzi's announcement, Sandlin sold his land for $4.5 million, a much higher price than he paid for it.

Renzi told the New Times that he did nothing wrong and that sometime after his announcement he recused himself from the bill after a lobbyist's questioned his connection to Sandlin. The land swap never became law.^[17]

On October 24, 2006, the Associated Press reported that the U.S. attorney's office in Arizona has opened an investigation into the land swap deal. According to a law enforcement 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."

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