Harry Reid... the charismatic senator-for-life from Nevada, currently majority leader ...
of [Nevada] and Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.
The records state Mr. Johnson approached Mr. Swallow and Mr. Shurtleff in 2010 about help on two matters — one involving online poker laws and the other involving a pending Federal Trade Commission case against his company. The requests included efforts to secure meetings with Sens. Hatch and Reid.
The court records state Mr. Swallow reached out through an intermediary to secure the meeting with Mr. Reid and informed Mr. Johnson "that the price to obtain access" to someone who could arrange the meeting "won't be cheap."
Mr. Johnson reached out to Mr. Swallow's intermediary in a Oct. 7, 2010 email with the subject line of "Senator Reid."
"I talked with John Swallow and he said you might have some connections to Reid that might be helpful to us," Mr. Johnson wrote in the email, citing his problems with the FTC.
The court records allege Mr. Johnson subsequently wired money to an account controlled by the intermediary totaling $250,000 and that the intermediary subsequently sent some money to Mr. Swallow.
The court records make no further mention of what happened to the Reid meeting or whether the money was spent in connection with that meeting.
However,
death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate...
Mr. Johnson has alleged after he was indicted by federal authorities that he was told the money was supposed to be spent securing Sen. Reid's help in the FTC commission.
Mr. Reid's office has long dismissed the allegations as nonsense. But Tuesday court records are the first to officially link Mr. Johnson's efforts to get a meeting with Sen. Reid to the exchange of money.
Mr. Gill, the local prosecutor in Salt Lake City, was one of two state prosecutors who told The Washington Times back in March that they had stumbled onto possible incriminating information involving Sen. Reid and that his office was using FBI agents to assist in that investigation.