In the mid-1980's Charles Keating was Chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. With deregulation of S&L's in the early '80's Keating was able to use depositors funds to make risky investments. The investments caught the attention of federal regulators who then limited to 10% the amount of FDIC insured funds that an institution could direct toward the high risk ventures.
At that time, John and Cindy McCain were close friends and business associates of Charles Keating. Keating was a significant financial contributor to McCain's campaigns. When Keating needed his friend's help, McCain obliged.
At Keating's behest, four senators--McCain and Democrats Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, and John Glenn of Ohio--met with Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, on April 2. Those four senators and Sen. Don Riegle, D-Mich., attended a second meeting at Keating's behest on April 9 with bank regulators in San Francisco.
Regulators did not seize Lincoln Savings and Loan until two years later. The Lincoln bailout cost taxpayers $2.6 billion, making it the biggest of the S&L scandals. In addition, 17,000 Lincoln investors lost $190 million.
Keating was eventually tried and convicted for his role in Lincoln's 1989 failure. After an Ethics Committee investigation McCain received a mild rebuke, it was noted McCain used poor judgment.
The S&L crisis caused McCain to realize the inherent dangers of unregulated but insured or protected institutions. With this new insight McCain forcefully a charge in the senate toward more stringent regulation of federally insured financial institutions. McCain's leadership on this issue undoubtedly prevented similar, but larger, catastrophic bank failures (just kidding).
Meanwhile, according to Cindy, the pressure (at 6:50+) she felt during her husband's scandal caused her to become addicted to narcotics which she stole from a charity she conveniently started. Cindy is no Rush Limbaugh, but she was sometimes taking as many as 15 pills a day.
Timesonline:
Her husband and family had no idea she was secretly taking pills stolen from a charity she had created called the American Voluntary Medical Team, which sent mobile surgical units to war zones. When federal agents began to investigate gaps in the charity’s records, Cindy telephoned her husband, a senator in Washington, and confessed