Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Topeka, is the Kansas congressman seemingly most vulnerable to challenge this year, in part because he must satisfactorily explain how he came to acquire a Capitol Hill home at less than market price from an organization tied to felonious lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But Ryun told The Topeka Capital-Journal that during two weeks touring the state, "I haven’t had a single question on it. Not a single question." It’s hard to know whether that says more about Kansans or Kansas media’s coverage of the state’s congressional delegation.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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34 Comments
Probably because not a single person knows about Ryun’s deal, and the very few people that do, don’t care.
Testing…testing. My last post got deleted…
Testing..
Rhonda,
Do you have some information about this deal that the Justice Department doesn’t?
Please tell us what it is they should still be investigating.
Perhaps, better yet, why don’t you use some of those journalistic skills of yours and investigate it!
I will be waiting anxiously for the results of your trial at the WE by the editors and the verdict.
Untill then I suppose I will have to be satisfied with the implications of guilt that you throw around to tarnish the guy.
“Probably because not a single person knows about Ryun’s deal”
Yep, Joe, the right-wing media has done a good job of keeping it buried.
He hasn’t had “a single question about it” because these right-wing Republicans only speak to hand-picked crowds and their speaking itineraries are practically secret.
I’ve been trying for several years to confront Tiahrt on why his nose has been surgically attached to Bush’s butt, but try and find out when and where the man is at a public forum.
They’re chickensh*t. They won’t even meet with their constitutents.
I have posted a link to the Ryun story almost every week since it broke. Only wilful ingnorance would prompt someone to say they dont know about this. Maybe the voters down there dont care if he is part of the culture of corruption, but they cant say they dont know about it.
He IS under investigation as part of the abramhoff/reed corruption, isnt he?
And isnt it interesting, no matter how many times the links to the Ryun culture of corruption scandal get posted, we only NOW get a thread on it? After it is old news?
Nathan,
certainly you can’t be that naive, can you? I suppose representative Washington having $90K in his freezer wouldn’t pique your interest either. Ryun bought a home for a price well below market value from people connected political groups from whom he had received support.
Were you further aware that news people often “break” stories that Justice does eventually wind up investigating and convicting people on?
Ryuan may not have done anything wrong, but it is the appearance of impropriety that leads one to suspect something shady…and thus to a call for an investigation.
Brian, it must be SO hard on the whiney conservatives right now. EVERYTHING is going south for them, and now this? Jim “church boy” Ryun under investigation related to abramhoff and the culture of corruption?
It is so (sniff) HARD for them right now! Especially with gay marriage having higher approval ratings than the preznit.
We’ll test ryun’s approval ratings this fall.
SUPPORT NANCY BOYDA!!!!!!!!!
Morning KFG,
Yup, (sniffle, sniffle) It’s hard when your childish faith in the governmental equivalents of your father and mother figures turn out to be less than perfect..even abusive.
It sometimes strikes me how some people are like “pack” animals..defend the pack..right or wrong. It’s like they’ve watched “A Few Good Men” waayyyy too many times (aside: it’s not that hard when TNT shows it about twice a week!!). “Unit, Corps,God, Country”…no independent thought..heaven forbid if there be any, there might be some serious cognitive dissonance.
The truth? WE CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!
Ya know what really sucks?
I am NAMED after this guy. My first name is Ryan, chosen because my Dad was a sports nut. It could be worse I guess. Dad was a big Yankee fan. He wanted to call me Mickey after Mantle. Thankfully Mom kiboshed that idea.
Dad would not have liked what Ryun has become. He liked him for breaking the four minute mile. Not for possibly breaking the law and running away from questions.
What is really funny here is that the BushBots complain about the “liberal media” but that media gives Ryan a free pass.
The only reason he looks guilty of anything is because like the typical liberals you all are you accuse him of guilt over and over again.
Ryun answered all these acusations. Too bad if they are not good enough for you Rhonda.
He showed over 50,000 in repair expenses after he bought the home and got a deal because they did not have a 6% real estate agent fee and found that there needed to be some structural repairs.
Heh, yup, JR. I ran the two mile in high school (and wrestled), and Jim Ryun and Marty Liquori were my heroes.
Who knew Ryun was going to turn out to be a flat-earth religious wack-o . . .
Know-nothing Nathan says “there’s no evidence he did anything wrong” . . . hehehe, yeah, you betcha, nothing wrong at all.
Why would lobbyists buy houses and sell them for less than they bought them for?
Unless they want to influence the man they bribed?
Could that be it? I wonder . . .
What bribe? If he was bribed then where is the proof?
It was sold for less because of damage and they didn’t have to pay real estate agent fee’s.
Unbelievable . . . just unbelievable.
Okay, Nathan, my house is for sale. How about you pay me forty percent more than it’s worth just for the hell of it?
Lefthook,
I have yet to see you show me much of anything in the lines of proof.
Nathan, next to the definition of “disingenuous,” they have your effing picture.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about it–
Townhouse purchase in 2000D.C. property records show that the a townhouse in the District of Columbia was sold to Ryun and his wife for $410,000 on December 15, 2000. [3] According to the Washington Post, the townhouse had been purchased slightly less than two years earlier for $429,000 by Ed Buckham’s U.S. Family Network and was used to house Buckham’s consulting firm Alexander Strategy Group and DeLay’s ARMPAC.[2]
An appraiser who focuses on residential properties in the D.C. area said that the property should have appreciated at least 15% during that time, meaning that it should have sold for around $500,000. Another appraiser said that the townhouse should have appreciated “by $100,000 at least.” He said the low sale price “wouldn’t make sense at all unless there was a fire and the place was gutted.” He added, “It looks like they gave it away.” [3]
The townhouse was never put on the market; it was sold to Ryun in a private sale. Ryun said he negotiated the sale price after a housing inspector found a structural problem that would require up to $20,000 to repair. He also agreed not to use a real estate agent, saving the group a 6 percent sales commission of $24,600.
Ryun’s office released documents showing that another home on the same block was sold for $409,000 on the same day he bought his home. Property records show the other home is on a land area about half the size of Ryun’s and is now assessed at $236,000 less than Ryun’s home, which is now assessed at $764,310. [4]
The U.S. Family Network, which sold the house, was a sham nonprofit controlled by Buckham, DeLay’s former chief of staff; funding to the organization came mostly from Jack Abramoff’s lobbying clients. The organization ceased to exist in 2001.[5]
Property sold to a member of Congress at substantially under market value can, in some instances, be construed as a de facto gift, which would require disclosure on an annual financial report. [6]
*****
This was a bribe, pure and simple. Nobody sells a half a million dollar property in Washington’s red hot market for 90 thousand less than it’s worth and 20 thousand less than they bought it for. This was a front company for high-priced lobbyists providing free money for one of their conservative shills.
Just imagine how you would be screaming if Clinton had done this.
You can’t be as dumb as you sound . . .
Lefthook,
Once again, this prooves nothing.
Either you believe what Ryun said or you don’t.
You have no difinitive proof to show that this was a bribe or anything more than a good deal for Ryun.
How ’bout an FBI raid on Ryun’s Kansas residence, his DC residence, and his congressional offices?
If we’re going to test the constitutionality of a legislative branch raid, we might as well get our money’s worth.
Thank God nathan is not a in any type of investigative work, like policeman, detective, FBI agent, etc. I’m sure on the basis of his ‘analysis’ of the Ryun situation, nathan would not have seen anything amiss or suspicious in a bunch of Arabs taking flight lessons and not wanting to take the ‘landing the jet’ part of the course. They had done nothing wrong, they paid their tuition, they were good students. Gee, no scrutiny warranted, I suppose.
For a soldier in Iraq, i guess that unattended attache case by the side of the road is nothing to be concerned about…no proof that it’s anything other than it is.
Agreed, Brian. Nathan has one set of criteria for conservatives (you have to prove they knowingly made a false statement before you can call anything a “lie” which is impossible because you can’t read another person’s mind) and another set for liberals (guilty at the very mention of scandel).
John Kerry for instance didn’t earn any of his medals and is a “liar,” according to Nathan, despite the eyewitness testimony, the Navy’s written records, and photographic evidence.
Ryun on the other hand can’t be guilty because he says he’s not guilty. End of discussion.
Let’s look at Ryun’s own numbers–20,000 for unspecified “structural damage” (what? carpenter ants?) and 24,000 saved in fees.
Okay, that’s 44,000 dollars + the purchase price of 410,000 = 450,000.
The house should have been worth at least 500,000 according to appraisers. Appraisers aren’t just people with an opinion, Nathan, they’re professionals who use analytic evidence like comparables to establish a value. It’s not a guess that is subjuct to wild variation.
So even assuming what Ryun says is true, he got a 50,000 bribe.
And isn’t it interesting that for two years the price of the real estate actually went down but after Ryun bought it, it shot up almost double?
But we’re supposed to just believe Ryun.
Yup, Nathan I’ll believe Ryun when you believe Kerry.
Indeed, LH
Also, think about the structural repair issue. If you, as an owner, were told that tere were $25K in structural damage to your home, but fixing that damage would add $100K to the value, wouldn’t you take out a loan, if you had to, fix the damage, and make an easy $75K return on the $25K you spent 3 months before?
I’m not saying Ryun has done anything wrong, but members of the government sign up for increased scrutiny when they sign up for the job. As the old saying goes, paraphrased, “All that evil needs to succeed is that good do nothing”.
Rep. Tiahrt is helping set the record straight. If you didn’t catch his response to the story, check out the May 29th Topeka Capital-Journal. He called the house a money pit because it had structural problems and because the Ryuns had to convert it back from an office to a house.
Also, check the real estate records and ask a few people about appreciation in DC at that time. US Family Network owned the home for just over 18 months, and according to real estate assessments, it went up less than 5% in value during that time. You’d also find on the real estate records that no similarly sized house on that block sold for as much as $450,000 during that time.
Ryun released all of this information to the media back when the story first came out. He gave an extensive interview to the Capital-Journal on the issue. He hasn’t been hiding from the story or any of the facts.
The Eagle has clearly not examined all of the facts of this story, but instead is in effect accusing Ryun of wrongdoing. What a poor example of journalism. I’m not surprised.
One more thing, no appraisers stepped forward to say this. That so-called fact came from a liberal blog known as “The Muckraker.” The Muckraker cited unnamed appraisers who had never seen the home, had not examined any structural damage, etc. For all we know the Muckraker just made it up or just called some like-minded real estate professional who would agree to inflate the number to make it sound sensational.
And, as to Brian’s “math” if another house the same size on the same block sold for $449,000 around the same time and you say Ryun’s math added to $454,000, it sounds to me like Ryun might have overpaid.
Lefthook,
What appraisers?
You mean the speculation by two of them that it should have been worth more?
Did either of those apprasiers actually go to the house or present any evidence?
No they did not. They mad an appraisal of the house based on speculation of the facts at hand.
When appraisers look at the value of the home they actually come out and inspect it. They don’t sit in their office and come up with a value based on what should have happened.
Once again, you bring nothing to this discussion about the facts, just speculation and accusations.
liberal blog known as “The Muckraker.”
Kind of like the swiftboaters?
Was that “swiftboaters” comment your attempt at being clever?
I know you’re trying to distract from the fact that no one has produced any evidence that Ryun bought the house at “well below market value.”
The Eagle should retract this absurd allegation unless they can produce actual facts.
What about the swiftboat Veterans?
They wrote a book with testimony, documents, evidence…
They all served just as much and more as Kerry did during Vietnam.
Many of them received just as many and more ribbons and medals for their service to the country.
Well, you’re right in the sense that some reporter should do an actual story on this.
I find it hard to believe that housing prices went up only 5 percent in 18 months. It’s possible but it doesn’t sound likely.
Also, why did Ryun get such a sweetheart deal from a like-minded PAC? Why didn’t some disinterested third party buy it?
That doesn’t smell good . . .
But until some reporter actually does their job, we won’t know. And The Eagle just making snide comments is no excuse for actual journalism.
The Topeka Capital-Journal ran a story on it, they left out key facts and organized other in a pretty slanted way, but the fact is Ryun sat down with their reporter and answered all his questions. If he were hiding some, is it a smelly deal or a sweet deal, wrongdoing, why would he risk answering those questions? Even if property values went up 10%, that would have put the house at $472,000 and according to one of the bloggers math, Ryun had $454,000 in the deal. Are we saying that $18,000 couldn’t be accounted for by less than 10% appreciation or other mitigating factors? Do you people have nothing better to do with your time than trying to pin a bogus charge on Ryun?
Well, Dave, that’s question begging. We don’t know if it’s a “bogus charge” until we get the facts.
As usual, there seems to be two sets of “facts”: the liberal and the conservative. Surely we can agree that there’s enough controversy here that Ryun (an elected official representing us) should come completely clean on the deal.
He should provide the appraisers’ reports if they don’t jibe with the accusations. His job is to avoid the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest.