John Sidney McCain III
https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain
1987 serving as the senior United States Senator from Arizona
2008 election was the Republican nominee for President of the United States
1958 graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy
his father and grandfather—both four-star admirals—into the United States Navy
became a naval aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers
1967 USS Forrestal fire
October 1967 he was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese on a bombing mission over Hanoi
prisoner of war until 1973
1981 retired from the Navy as a captain and moved to Arizona
1982 was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served two terms
1986~2016 first elected to the U.S. Senate and easily won re-election five times
1980s investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence scandal as a member of the
Keating Five
https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five
1989 five United States Senators accused of corruption, igniting a major
political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s
and early 1990s
five senators – Alan Cranston (Democrat of California),
Dennis DeConcini (Democrat of Arizona),
John Glenn (Democrat of Ohio),
John McCain (Republican of Arizona), and
Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (Democrat of Michigan)
accused of improperly intervening in 1987 on behalf of Charles H. Keating, Jr.
Charles H. Keating, Jr. Chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association,
which was the target of a regulatory investigation by the Federal Home Loan
Bank Board (FHLBB) The FHLBB subsequently backed off taking action
against Lincoln
1989 Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed at a cost of over $3 billion to the federal
government
1991 the Senate Ethics Committee determined that Cranston, DeConcini, and
Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB's investigation
Cranston receiving a formal reprimand. Senators Glenn and McCain were
cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised
"poor judgment"
Lincoln's branch managers and tellers, by order of John Granger, convinced
customers to replace their federally-insured certificates of deposit
FDIC chair L. William Seidman would later write that Lincoln's push to get
depositors to switch was "one of the most heartless and cruel frauds in modern
memory
April 1989 American Continental went bankrupt and Lincoln was seized by
the FHLBB About 23,000 customers were left with worthless bonds
total bondholder loss came to between $250 million and $288 million.
The federal government was eventually liable for $3.4 billion to cover Lincoln's
losses when it seized the institution
Keating and John Granger was hit with a $1.1 billion fraud and racketeering action
In talking to reporters in April, Keating said, "One question, among many raised in
recent weeks, had to do with whether my financial support in any way influenced
several political figures to take up my cause. I want to say in the most forceful
way I can: I certainly hope so."
In the wake of the Lincoln failure, former FHLBB chair Gray went public about all
five of the senators' assistance to Keating in a May 21, 1989, front-page story by
John Dougherty in the Dayton Daily News, saying that in the April 1987 meetings
the senators had sought "to directly subvert the regulatory process" to benefit
Keating
July 1989 Los Angeles Times article about Cranston's role
Arizona Republic and Washington Post reporters were investigating
McCain's personal relationships with Keating
September 25, 1989 several Republicans from Ohio filed an ethics complaint
against Glenn, charging that he had improperly intervened on Keating's behalf
October 13, 1989 initial charges against the five Senators were made by
Common Cause, a public interest group, who asked for the U.S. Justice
Department and the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the actions of the
senators relative to Lincoln and the contributions received from Keating and
whether they violated the rules of the Senate or federal election laws
most public attention came from the House Banking Committee, whose new
chair Henry B. Gonzalez held 50 hours of hearings into the Lincoln failure and
associated events
https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_B._Gonz%C3%A1lez
November 1989, the estimated cost of the overall savings and loan crisis had
reached $500 billion
McCain said, "I have done this kind of thing many, many times," and said the
Lincoln case was like "helping the little lady who didn't get her Social Security."
Charles Ruff for Glenn and John Dowd for McCain
https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ruff