McCain dirt - McCain's upwards political trajectory was jolted when he became enmeshed in the Keating Five scandal of the 1980s. In the context of the Savings and Loan crisis of that decade, Charles Keating, Jr.'s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, a subsidiary of his American Continental Corporation, was insolvent due to some bad loans. In order to regain solvency, Lincoln sold investment in a real estate venture as a FDIC insured savings account. This caught the eye of federal regulators who were looking to shut it down. It is alleged that Keating contacted five senators to whom he made contributions. McCain was one of those senators and he met at least twice in 1987 with Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, seeking to prevent the government's seizure of Lincoln. Between 1982 and 1987, McCain received approximately $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates.[73] In addition, McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family and baby-sitter made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. After learning Keating was in trouble over Lincoln, McCain paid for the air trips totaling $13,433.[74]
Eventually the real estate venture failed, leaving many broke. Federal regulators ultimately filed a $1.1 billion civil racketeering and fraud suit against Keating, accusing him of siphoning Lincoln's deposits to his family and into political campaigns. The five senators came under investigation for attempting to influence the regulators. In the end, none of the senators were convicted of any crime, but McCain did receive a rebuke from the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment" for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating.[75] On his Keating Five experience, McCain said: "The appearance of it was wrong. It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do."[75]
McCain survived the political scandal by, in part, becoming very friendly with the political press; [76] with his blunt manner, he became a frequent guest on television news shows, especially once the 1991 Gulf War began and his military and POW experience became in demand.[76] McCain began campaigning against lobbyist money in politics from then on. His 1992 re-election campaign found his opposition split between Democratic community and civil rights activist Claire Sargent and impeached and removed former Governor Evan Mecham running as an independent.[76] Although Mecham garnered some hard-core conservative support, Sargent's campaign never gathered momentum and the Keating Five affair did not dominate discussion.[76][77] McCain again won handily,[76] getting 56 percent of the vote to Sargent's 32 percent and Mecham's 11 percent.
Mrs McCain dirt - In August 1994, Cindy McCain admitted she had been addicted to painkillers such as Percocet and Vicodin since 1989, saying she had resorted to stealing drugs from a nonprofit medical relief charity, the American Voluntary Medical Team. When McCain publicly revealed her addiction, years after she had proclaimed sobriety, and after county investigative materials were made public, she stated she hoped it would give fellow drug addicts courage in their struggles: "Although my conduct did not result in compromising any missions of AVMT, my actions were wrong, and I regret them." A few weeks later, the Variety Club of Arizona canceled its "humanitarian of the year" award dinner in her honor citing poor ticket sales.[7] Her activities also violated federal statutes, so a federal investigation was also performed. McCain's defense team secured an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office that was limited to financial restitution and treatment for her drug addiction. At the time, legal experts told the Phoenix New Times that had she not been married to John, she likely would have been sentenced to federal prison.[citation needed] Tom Gosinski, the director of government and international affairs for the American Voluntary Medical Team, who tipped off the DEA to investigate McCain's drug theft, also accused her of asking him to lie concerning her drug use when the McCains were applying to adopt a baby from Bangladesh. [8] [9]
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