On the Today Show this morning, Cindy McCain defended the McCain campaign's decision to withhold her tax returns, saying they would never make her tax returns public--not even if she becomes First Lady.
I think that's a serious problem and an untenable position for John McCain (R) to maintain. Considering that McCain fashions himself as a fighter for more public transparency, and the fact that both Barack Obama (D) and Hillary Clinton (D) have released their family's tax returns, this will dog McCain for the entire general election. Earlier today, the Democratic National Committee called on McCain to do what his opponents have already done and release his wife's returns.
Here's what Cindy McCain said this morning:
CINDY MCCAIN: You know, my husband and I have been married for 28 years and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate.
QUESTION: You'll never release, you're saying?
CINDY MCCAIN: No
QUESTION: Never?
CINDY MCCAIN: No. No.
QUESTION: Even if you're first lady?
CINDY MCCAIN: No.
QUESTION: Because that is, even though not an elected position, you would be in a very public role.
CINDY MCCAIN: I'm not the candidate.
[Click here for the video clip]
However, separate from this legitimate transparency issue, there are two far more compelling reasons for Cindy McCain to release her returns and disclose her sources of income.
First, as was well documented in a 20,000 word profile by the Arizona Republic on John McCain back in 1999, it was Cindy's own money that was used to get McCain elected to Congress in the first place:
Many have told the tale of John McCain winning the 1st Congressional District by wearing out three pairs of shoes. McCain's footwear definitely took a beating during the race, but it was more greenbacks than soles that swept McCain into the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982.
McCain's first campaign benefited from his wife's personal wealth, some of which had been tied up in a trust set up in 1971 by her parents, Jim and Marguerite ''Smitty'' Hensley.
In 1981, the trust expired and was dissolved, giving Cindy McCain a half interest in Western Leasing Co., a truck-leasing business controlled by her father, said Trevor Potter, general counsel to the McCain 2000 campaign and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
In 1982, Cindy McCain received $639,000 from Western Leasing, according to a financial disclosure report filed by McCain. Potter said that figure reflects Cindy's income on paper, not the actual cash she received, which was about $250,000.
In any case, that same year, the McCains lent $169,000 of their own money to the campaign. Western Leasing, in part, made those loans possible, Potter said.
''Her financial assets played a part in allowing them to loan money to the campaign,'' Potter said. ''And her financial assets included the income from Western Leasing.'' (Page 19)
Cindy McCain was no ordinary bystander to her husband's political career. It was her own money that helped to get him elected in the first place.
But even more significant is her involvement in the scandal of McCain's career -- The Keating Five.
In spinning his side of the Keating story, McCain adopted the blanket defense that Keating was a constituent and that he had every right to ask his senators for help. In attending the meetings, McCain said, he simply wanted to make sure that Keating was treated like any other constituent.
Keating was far more than a constituent to McCain, however.
On Oct. 8, 1989, The Republic revealed that 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.
...When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself. When reporters first called him, he was furious. Caught out in the open, the former fighter pilot let go with a barrage of cover fire. Sen. Hothead came out in all his glory.
''You're a liar,''' McCain snapped Sept. 29 when a Republic reporter asked him about business ties between his wife and Keating.
''That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot,'' McCain said later in the same conversation. ''You do understand English, don't you?''
He also belittled the reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating.
''It's up to you to find that out, kids.''
And then he played the POW card.
''Even the Vietnamese didn't question my ethics,'' McCain said.
The paper ran the story a few days later. At a news conference, McCain was a changed man. He stood calmly for 90 minutes and answered every question.
On the shopping center, his defense was simple. The deal did not involve him. The shares in the shopping center had been purchased by a partnership set up between McCain's wife and her father. (Page 27)
But it only got worse for Cindy's personal and financial involvement with Keating.
From a December 1989 Newsday story:
The Senate Ethics Committee will seek a detailed study of a real estate partnership involving developer Charles Keating Jr. and the wife of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), according to Senate sources.
Involved is an investment by Cindy McCain and her father, James Hensley, in a $15-million Phoenix, Ariz., shopping center. The $359,000 investment, made through a Hensley company subsidiary in which Cindy McCain had 41 percent ownership and her father 51 percent, makes them the largest single investors in the project originally financed, built and managed by Keating. The investment by the senator's relatives was made in 1986 after Keating was already in a bitter feud with federal regulators alarmed over his operation of Lincoln Savings and Loan.
Ultimately, the Ethics Committee reprimanded McCain for his involvement in the Keating 5, calling it an exercise in "poor judgment."
But the fact that Cindy McCain's own money was tied-up in business dealings with Keating himself provides an even more compelling reason for her to now publicly reveal her finances and business relationships.
Given that Mrs. McCain 1) already tapped her personal money for the purposes of directly helping her husband's political career and 2) was the she was the largest investor in a real estate deal managed by Keating and for which records were sought by the Senate Ethics Committee which reprimanded her husband for his actions on behalf of her business partner, she loses the right to avoid disclosure under the premise that she's "not the candidate" and then calling her finances "a privacy issue."
The problem with her argument is that Cindy McCain isn't in fact separate from her husband's obligations of disclosure as a candidate for president. She was an active participant in its start and whose business dealings were the subject of one of the biggest Senate scandals in a generation.
While McCain has received a free pass while Clinton and Obama have battled, that is coming to an end very shortly. It's time that John McCain practices what he preaches about ethics and transparency. His wife's finances are absolutely germane to this race and the public has a right to know about her finances and her business relationships.
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