And for more McCain scandals....

This is from Think Progress:

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) “has been indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges related to a land deal in Arizona,” according to the Associated Press. Renzi and two former business partners are accused “of conspiring to promote the sale of land that buyers could swap for property owned by the federal government.”

Renzi, who is one of CREW’s 22 Most Corrupt Members of Congress, has been under investigation by the FBI since 2006. At the heart of the investigation was a land deal worth more than $4 million that Renzi brokered for his former business partner, James Sandlin:

In 2005, mining company Resolution Copper sought to mine for copper in Superior, Arizona. Before mining could commence however, Resolution needed Congress to approve a land swap.

Rep. Renzi agreed to support the land exchange bill if, as part of the swap, Resolution bought a 480 acre alfalfa field in his hometown owned by Mr. Sandlin. When Resolution Copper refused the deal, Rep. Renzi solicited the Petrified Forest Group to purchase the land for $4 million. Rep. Renzi assured the group that he would make sure that the swap got through the Natural Resources Committee.

Around the same time, Sandlin made a $200,000 payment to a wine company owned by Renzi. The payment was never noted on Renzi’s 2005 financial disclosure forms for the House.

In April 2007, the FBI raided an insurance business tied to Renzi, which led Renzi to resign from his committee seats and eventually announce that he would not seek another term in office.

Questions have previously been raised as to whether Paul Charlton, one of the nine U.S. attorneys fired last year, lost his job because of his active investigation of Renzi. Read the full indictment here.

UPDATE: Renzi is member of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) National Leadership Team as well as a co-chair of his Arizona Leadership Team.

What we have here is a corrupt Republican politician that got caught in a bad land deal for his own greed. What is worst is that the McCain campaign didn't realize just how dirty Renzi was when they brought him into the campaign. Even McCain himself is completely oblivious to just how dirty Renzi was. Consider this from ABC News:

At a news conference in Indianapolis, he [McCain] said, "I’m sorry obviously, you always feel for the family as you know he has 12 children. But I don’t know enough of the details or anything to make a judgment, this kind of thing is always, is always very unfortunate. I rely on our department of justice and our system of justice to make the right outcome.”

When you read this comment by McCain, it seems that McCain is saying that Renzi is a great family man with 12 children, whose life is being destroyed by this "unfortunate" incident. McCain is defending Renzi without actually coming out and directly saying that Renzi is innocent of this corruption. What this Renzi indictment, and McCain's response, shows is a lack of any sort of ethics, or morality, within the John McCain, and his campaign. This is a man who will say anything, and do anything, in order to become president. This is not the sort of individual you want in the Oval Office.