http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAzDEbVFcg8McCain: "I created an appearance of impropriety by attending a meeting with four other regulators ... well, four other senators, with four regulators."
Charles Keating, millionaire banker who has come to embody the Savings & Loan scandal, was led off in handcuffs today.
Hearings begin this week for what is already being called a major Congressional scandal. It involves the $500 billion Savings & Loan bailout. It is about charges that five U.S. Senators tried to protect one S&L owner who had contributed to their political campaigns.
Never before have five senators been accused of intervening with Federal regulators to help a campaign contributor. Keating and his associates gave a total of $1.4 million to the senators; the senators then pressured former regulator Edwin Gray to go easy on Keating. Keating has become a symbol of the worst financial scandal in U.S. history, and the worst ethics scandal in the history of the Senate.
Keating was also a high-powered McCain constituent and friend. Former press secretary Torie Clarke: "It was a very very close personal relationship, families spent a lot of time together, they traveled so often together with the Keating family, flying to their place in the Bahamas."
There were direct business ties as well. Cindy McCain had a major stake in a Keating real-estate development. William Black was one of the lead investigators at the meeting. Black: "Senator McCain was unique among the five senators in having a direct financial conflict of interest involving direct investments."
Former regulator Black is unforgiving. "On judgment, ethics and truthfulness, he failed this test as badly as you can fail."
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