AP Story Wrong -- Reid Could Not Have Paid for Boxing Tickets

Chalk up another one for the blog community and put another demerit on the tote board for the mainstream media.

Major kudos go to Paul Kiel at TPMmuckraker.com who discovered that the Associated Press (AP) took the story about Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid allegedly doing something wrong by accepting free tickets to boxing matches and got it about as wrong as possible. The whole crux of the story -- that Reid had accepted tickets from people attempting to buy his influence -- had already been exploded by bloggers because, taken even at face value, it just made no sense. (Reid's every legislative action worked against the interests of those who got him into the fights.)

Now, Kiel has confirmed that it would actually have been illegal for Reid to pay for entry to the fights as his admission was not granted based on tickets, but by "credentials" that gained him admittance to a special, ringside area set aside for the Nevada Gaming Commissioner.

An excerpt from Paul's piece:

OK, so we've nailed this down. It would have been against state law for Harry Reid to have reimbursed the Nevada Athletic Commission for credentials.

Clearly, this is pretty far down in the weeds. But the AP actually got a pretty significant fact wrong. So let me run through the details.

Bob Arum, the boxing promoter who gave the credentials to Reid and Sen. John McCain, made that claim to The Las Vegas Review Journal. But I wanted to check up on that, so I called Keith Kizer, the Executive Director of the Nevada Athletic Commission. Kizer should know - he is a lawyer and former Chief Deputy Attorney General for the state of Nevada.

"It would be illegal," Kizer said, explaining that it fell under a state law prohibiting agencies or individuals for charging access to government property. The credentials provide access to the commission's area near the ring. "It would be like charging someone for access to a senator's office," Kizer added with no apparent sense of irony.

Please go to TPMmuckraker for the rest.

Oh, and Paul, if you're joining the rest of us in Las Vegas next week for YearlyKos, I'll stand in line to buy you a drink.

You can reach Bob Geiger at geiger.bob@gmail.com and read more from him at Democrats.com.

And did McCain really do so and commit an offense? (Uh doubt it. But just asking.)

I hate it when bad info's put out by the AP.

Edit: Just to say it up front, I criticized Reid for the appearance of impropriety based on information that has now been shown above to be false, in particular the part about McCain paying for his own *tickets*, which was what changed this from a non-story into a narrative of Reid flirting with impropriety while technically following the rules (as has been argued in other cases including the Abramoff scandal). So I am *very* righteously ticked off at having done so on the basis of information that, it appears, was highly misleading, and I'd like to know how this happened.

the AP story said that McCain paid. This new story in the OP does not address that, which in my opinion weakens this new story unfortunately.

The original story certainly strongly implied, from what I'd read of it, that McCain sat in the same section and was invited by the same commissioner, so what gives?....

That's what I'm asking. Because McCain's acting cleaner than Reid is the only reason to pay attention to the story at all.

and I can't think of a reason why the second story wouldn't address it. I'll have to assume the original story is the better version of events.

Group, the 2 Philly papers sold to RW swift boat types.

Without an FCC Fairness Doctrine, the rich get a great return by controlling the media -

look at the tax reductions and the corporate welfare via "war" contracts that they have received under Bush....

hope Reid knows he didn't do anything wrong even "appearances".

back on the FRONT BURNER:



...from left to right, Neil Volz (former Ney aide, then Team Abramoff member, now felon), Ralph Reed, Paul Vinovich (Ney aide), Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) , William Heaton (Ney aide), David Safavian (on trial), Michael Williams (member of Team Abramoff), Alex Abramoff and Jack Abramoff. They're standing in front of the chartered plane that Abramoff booked to Scotland.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000784.php

When there was an attempt to return the money to McCain, he refused to take it, so the money was given to some charity.

I think McCain should be arrested for trying to pay. :)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2316477

And this one says Reid won't accept TICKETS like this in the future. Wha?

And that Reid admits misstating the relevant laws?... Wha?...

DIDN'T.

McCain's $1400 payment was illegal under the Law - and now to avoid send MCcain to jail we are to believe McCain gave the money to the fight promoter directly who then gave it to charity and we are told this is not paying for the ticket at the same time the "lying by partial truth always spun to hurt Democrats" AP is selling the idea that McCain's violation of the law makes him pure. Wonder how the AP plans to cover the 06 and 08 elections?

A ethics person Fred Wertheimer, called "a longtime ethics watchdog", noted that a
gift that creates the appearance that the gift is motivated by a desire to influence the member or gain favorable official action should not be accepted.

Although after the fight Reid voted for the legislation that the Boxing folks were against, and the it was the GOP that followed the money, were bought and paid for, and therefore killed the legislation the boxing folks wanted killed, the AP spin sure doesn't convey this WHOLE TRUTH.

Mr. Manley who is
Reid said he thought he had done nothing wrong.

Reid now says that to avoid folks like "ethics person Fred Wertheimer's" saying they saw the appearance of an appearance of someone possibly trying to influence a legislator -
I love a solid statement like this one - he (Reid) would not accept credentials from a sporting authority again. Now shall we watch to see how many GOP legislators stop getting free seats to NFL games?

and it's a bit grating to see it presented as some great loss.

I'm agnostic on whether McCain's payment was illegal. Muckraker says that Reid's people say they were wrong on citing the rule that specifically allows senators to accept gifts from their home state. Fine. The two are not equivalents and I'll wait for further word about McCain's repayment.

Granted the AP spin doesn't convey the whole truth. But Reid should offer the media no help in doing so.

And seriously, why is Reid getting free credentials from sporting authorities a good thing? Are we going to pretend that there's anything he's going to learn from attendance?

I'd prefer no freebies to anyone.

But the game is to the other side feeling their guy is worse than your guy - and in this case those feelings are not warranted.

Game? You've lost me.

Now if Josh's right that the reporter, to use the vernacular, just made s*** up, then that's a problem with the journalist. The Republicans don't even figure into it.

AP's current rewrite removing the line in the original that said Reid was for the bill the boxing people wanted killed even after the bribe of boxing tickets credentials from the State Lic Board.

To the GOP this is a must win game - it has nothing to do with political positions taken or corruption problems or corrupt or unethical history -

It is all about getting power to cut taxes for the rich and corporate (shifting burden onto the next generation via deficits) while giving welfare - contracts for unnecessary weapons and research in weapons - and for extra cost, albeit private sector, work needed done because of termination of government workers - to those corporations. Contracts that of late are always no bid because that is in the national interest.

John Solomon of the AP has been a GOP hack for years, smearing Democrats as much as possible, even when the facts do not even hint at any support for the implication in the smear. In his piece, John Solomon referred to Reid having received (implied reimbursable) "tickets" to the fight. That was a lie


The Senate ethics rules specifically exempt from conflict/appearance rules any gifts from governmental agencies (like the Nevada Athletic Commission) in the Senate ethics rules.

So we have a lie by partial truth, in addition to an error/lie by the writer.

And on the boxing bills at the time Reid never changed his position.

Indeed the creation of a United States Boxing Administration so as to protect the health of boxers passed the Senate unanimously.

that they don't pay for and the purpose is to report the event to the public?

Right?? Media don't pay for credentials to sporting events. They receive credentials to National Conventions held by major parties and don't pay for the access. They probably receive credentials or permitted access to paid events like entertainment, fundraisers, etc.

Just too convenient--McCain and Reid go together; McCain pays even though it is illegal to accept payment; they know Reid won't pay because it is ILLEGAL to accept payment and then WHAM--it is leaked to the media with the minor point of it being ILLEGAL to pay being left out....

A TOTAL SET-UP

:-(

As I was getting ready for work this a.m., I had it on CNN with the O'Briens and they were talking about corruption today in politics. They lumped Reid in with Delay, Cunningham and Jefferson. So there you have it...two Repukes and two Democrats. Even steven. :eyes:

He should have made a donation to charity equivalent to the value of the tickets.

I hate it when dems create quick easy soundbites like "free ringside seats" and "thousands of dollars in his freezer".

I can't stand it when I read crap like yours that blames the victim. Especially when the vicitim probably responded in the best way possible, considering the way things really work.

they cannot be sold, therefore they have no monetary value. By paying for the tickets, so to speak, you're creating the appearance that they had monetary value (which is against the rules), and it would still stink.

Face it. The guy with the money in his freezer.. pending some fantastic story, he screwed up big time. But Reid? He did nothing wrong, this was something that was drudged up to hurt him and make McCain look like some fucking superman. It's opposition research, they spend every day of the week with fully staffed offices trying destroy any Dems that might be powerful, and try to do anything to take the focus off the fact that the republicans have more corrupt officials, more incompetent officials, more philanderers, hypocrites, and child molestors, than the other major party. So.. they spend a lot of time trying to help the media make it "even-steven" as another poster wrote. The republicans own the media, so it doesn't matter what we do or don't do. The ridiculous new notion that the media has to balance every story that is bad about republicans, is ridiculous and insults their viewers and readers, but they do it anyway. Remember the CBS story that blew holes in the march to the Iraq War, the story that was not run because it was too close to the election and they thought it was unfair to influence the election? Sheesh. That says it all. It's not the tickets... it's the politics and the media.

the meme that "Dems are just as bad." Would be interesting to uncover the trail of this "story" - a paid Bushie shill? Pressure by GOP-owned editors or owners? One way or another, this was no accident.

This isn't the first time bloggers (including TPM)have openly tangled with the wiley AP in one fashion or another.

Or so it would seem according to this Raw Story saga earlier this year(which also mentions AP in reference to TPM).




Ah, but they can hasten to edit and inexplicably change stories like these:

Associated Press Story Change:

The Flight 93 Tape--http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/ap-93tape.htm

But The Memory Hole has been archiving a great deal of this for a long time...