WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid said Thursday that he is awaiting a ruling from the Senate ethics committee on his handling of a 2001 land transaction, saying he probably should have sought guidance at the time.
Reid, D-Nev., said his deputy chief of staff, Gary Myrick, conferred with committee staffers Wednesday in the wake of an Associated Press report on his transfer of property south of Spring Valley into a partnership managed by attorney Jay Brown, a longtime associate.
Advertisement
Reid did not report the 2001 transaction on his annual personal finance report to Congress. The property was sold three years later, netting the senator a $700,000 profit.
Government ethics attorneys said Reid may have violated Senate rules that require lawmakers to disclose all transactions regardless of profit or loss and to report pieces of company ownership. Upon the transfer, Reid obtained an interest in Patrick Lane LLC, the limited partnership Brown managed, the news service reported.
Reid, who served on the Senate Select Committee on Ethics at the time, continued to maintain that the transfer was "technical" and did not change his ownership of the land.
He said he did nothing improper, "but if the ethics committee wants me to file a technical correction, then I will be happy to do it."
Besides the additional paper, "nothing will change," he said.
Reid said he did not consult with the ethics committee at the time but perhaps should have. He said his financial disclosures have been prepared for 24 years by Claude Zobell, an attorney who was his first congressional chief of staff, in 1983.
"Claude being a good lawyer, probably he should have known more, maybe I should have known more, but I didn't do it," Reid said of checking with the Senate. "There was never any change of ownership.
"I don't want to try to be flippant about this. I don't mean to be," he said. "I will do whatever is necessary, but it doesn't change anything. It doesn't change the taxes that were paid. I've done everything legally."
Zobell could not be reached Thursday at his office in Memphis, Tenn., or at his home, where his wife said he was traveling. He is the brother of Charles Zobell, managing editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
