A veteran California senator has resigned as chair of a powerful military construction committee after reports that for years she abused her position to award her husband’s companies billions of dollars in government contracts.
During her six years as chair and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Senator Dianne Feinstein annually supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars for specific military construction projects. The San Francisco lawmaker supervised her own staff of military construction experts and she lobbied Pentagon officials to support her favorite projects.
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March 29, 2007 Violations Force Feinstein Military Committee Resignation A veteran California senator has resigned as chair of a powerful military construction committee after reports that for years she abused her position to award her husband’s companies billions of dollars in government contracts.
During her six years as chair and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Senator Dianne Feinstein annually supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars for specific military construction projects. The San Francisco lawmaker supervised her own staff of military construction experts and she lobbied Pentagon officials to support her favorite projects.
She wielded quite a bit of power and succeeded in steering hundreds of billions of dollars in military contracts to companies partially owned by her wealthy husband, Richard Blum. One company alone earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by Feinstein’s committee and another $759 million.
The blatant ethics violation and obvious conflict of interest was first exposed earlier this year by a weekly Northern California publication. The story details how Feinstein voted over the years for appropriations that enriched her husband’s firms and that her top legal advisor also happens to be one of her husband’s longtime business partners; in other words, a financial beneficiary of the senator’s decisions.
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NJ Senator Indicted For Fraud, Corruption A powerful New Jersey politician known as the king of double dipping for simultaneously collecting salaries from as many as four public jobs has been federally indicted for a corruption scheme that bilked taxpayers out of thousands.
As a longtime state legislator Democrat Wayne Bryant promoted himself as an advocate for the poor who became New Jersey’s highest ranking black lawmaker while in the Assembly in the early 1990s. When he was elected to the state senate, he become a member of a powerful budget committee and used his leverage to grant several lucrative state contracts to his relatives and his own law firm.
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
As a Democrat, I find it disturbing; also the fact that this is the first I've heard about it. It's an example of why I have little hope for the future of the US: neither party will ever consider the job of government as governing. They're a bunch of disappointments, on both sides of the aisle. Nor can I pass the opportunity to say this: the bush presidency has so disastrously screwed our country that even if the Democrats had real vision and commitment it'd probably be impossible to fix. Given their ineptitude, ain't no way. We should stop having children and let the planet go back to the other animals.
Posts: 1505 | Location: Puget Sound, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
It's certainly a reminder about the trap of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".
I have to ask, though - Scotty, do you think every politician who has had a hand in steering contracts to favoured war-profiteers with inside connections should step down?
I have to ask, though - Scotty, do you think every politician who has had a hand in steering contracts to favoured war-profiteers with inside connections should step down?
If she were a republican what would the Democratic Congresses do? Wouldn't there be a big uproar? I ask you?
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
It saounds like they stole a page from Delay, Cheney, er, Ney, er, Abramoff the Republican playbook. (Can the Republicans sue for copyright infringement?)
Posts: 17215 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
I have to ask, though - Scotty, do you think every politician who has had a hand in steering contracts to favoured war-profiteers with inside connections should step down?
LOL! I would love to see the responses if this had been a Republican. Since this was a democrat,they just try to throw things off to the Republicans. Funny.
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
It sounds like they stole a page from Delay, Cheney, er, Ney, er, Abramoff the Republican playbook. (Can the Republicans sue for copyright infringement?)
It seems to me that they have enough pages of their own. They certainly don't need to steal anything. Just look back and see. The Democratic playbook is filled with the likes of this.
Perhaps it is Bush's fault that the Dems have gone astray, after all he is responsible for all of the ills in the world, is he not?
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
...Bush's fault...after all he is responsible for all of the ills in the world, is he not?
Maybe not all the ills in the world. Only those that matter...
It is funny to watch people bicker back and forth over the lack of morals in politicians. Whether Democrat, Republican or other, we the people lose when these scumbags steal from us. These are really horrible crimes that do great harm to our society. It seems to me that when a crime is discovered, we the people should not bicker over which party is worse, but rather join together to find the truth of the matter (in court). And we should condemn a public official's dishonesty in wholehearted agreement.
Dwight
Posts: 4330 | Location: Anchorage, AK | Registered: 06-05-02
There is remarkably little coverage of this story in the mainstream media. It's not even on Fox, apparently. Could it be that the story isn't quite true?
"The media won't cover it because it's [********]. Ms. Feinstein couldn't have possibly chaired the MILCON committee for the past six years because Democrats were the Senate minority. She was a ranking minority member most of that time, and the Metroactive is misleading the reader by confusing Ms. Feinstein’s role in the committee.
Metroactive also misleads by stating that Diane Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum "owned" those companies because he didn't.
Even if Ms. Feinstein was chair of the committee during the period, any contract decisions have to be approved by a quorum of the committee and the Senate...
...Since she has disclosed the possibility of the conflict of interest the committee itself is the party to decide if Diane Feinstein is steering military contracts through the committee. Since both contractors, UDS and Perini Corp. are longtime government military contractors in all likelyhood someone else, not Ms. Feinstein, made the contractual dedisions because the committee and the Senate were well aware of her relationship to Mr. Blum...
...There isn't a conflict of interest because Mr. Blum doesn't and never did own any defense contracting businesses. Richard Blum is investment analyst, founder and senior partner of Blum Capital who once had investment holdings in two different defense contracting firms, Perini Corp. and URS. He divested himself of those holdings in 2005. The Committee and the Senate were both aware of Richard Blum's investment holdings because Diane Feinstein disclosed them to the Senate to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest when she was assigned to work on that committee years ago.
It's perfectly legal and ethical to have a spouse or family member have investment holdings in a company that contracts with the United States government. Mr. Blum had nothing to do with the day to day operations, or contract bidding decisions of Perini Corp or URS because he was not an employee of either company...
...The real reason Diane Feinstein left the MILCON committee in January was her new assignment as chair of Senate Rules Committee. She didn't resign in disgrace but resigned as a mere formality to take on new committee assignments in a newly elected Senate.
The reason why the media didn't " cover it" is all 100 Senators get new committee assignments in a newly election Senate and all of them resign from the committees they no longer serve on. A routine procedural task of the Senate is not newsworthy.
What I find is disturbing is the modus operandi of the right wing blogoshere. Right wing bloggers are well aware of the misleading content of the story but still give the green light for publication. These partisan kamikazes know the story is a great big pile of unmitigated [********] but they're hoping that some of the bovine manure they're tossing at Diane Feinstein will stick to her.'perspectives.com
Senator Feinstein's Iraq Conflict As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her husband's firms
In the November 2006 election, the voters demanded congressional ethics reform. And so, the newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own ethical conflict of interest, say congressional ethics experts.
Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee.
As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects.
NNN, poor reference.
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
I think the important part of that post I quoted is that Feinstein had disclosed the possibility of conflict of interest, and the committee had known about it. That makes it something of a non-story, doesn't it? It was up to the committee - largely Republican controlled over the last six years - to decide whether it was ethical or not for those particular two companies to get contracts, given the connection.
The spin - the carefully ambiguous wording of "As chairperson and ranking member" and "largely controlled by her husband" - seems to be just that, spin; an attempt to make things appear more newsworthy than they are, without actually lying.
Metroactive is a right wing blog in Santa Cruz CA with ties to the Republican National Committee. The primary political function of Metroactive has been to smear Ms. Feinstein and hound her out of the Senate because the Republicans can't come close to defeating her in a statewide election.
"It was up to the committee - largely Republican controlled over the last six years - to decide whether it was ethical or not.."
LMAO@ the idea of today's Republicans deciding what is or isn't ethical!
Seriously, subcommittees simply don't make final decisions. A subcommittee reports to a committee, which then reports to the Senate as a whole, which, during the time in question, was solidly in Republican hands. Thus, if what she did was wrong, everyone who voted give contracts to those companies shares in the blame. With a 55-45 advantage in the Senate, the Republicans could have prevented any contracts from becoming official. But they sure didn't, it seems. (Maybe the fact that they didn't is indicative of something being fishy.)
Posts: 17215 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
As much as everyone wants it to be about something else...It's all business....Republican,Democrat, Communist,jew,catholic, or Allah.....
It's business, show me otherwise.....
Show me why our countries do what they do, it's business, show me why we do business with Saudi Arabia, after they've screwed us all the time,show me why we don't do business with North Korea,..... I wanna know about this, tell me about it. Why can't we do business with Iran, why can't we do business with Cuba. These are alot of countries alot of places that if we just relax and chill we could make some cash and trade with them. Explain this to me. Why as a country we cannot do this, but yet you go to Jersey, NYC, Chicago, Brooklyn, and they can meet and solve a problem with a handshake, but as a country we can't do nothing????
Posts: 2693 | Location: USA | Registered: 06-07-02
Apparently this story came to light in April 2003, when the contract was awarded:
'URS Corp., a San Francisco planning and engineering firm partially owned by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, landed an Army contract Monday worth up to $600 million.
The award to help with troop mobilization, weapons systems training and anti-terrorism efforts is the latest in a string of plum defense jobs snared by URS. In February, the firm won an army engineering and logistics contract that could bring in $3.1 billion during the next eight years.
Government contracting has come under increasing scrutiny by Congress and citizen groups, with critics decrying the political connections of firms winning lucrative jobs. Richard Blum, Feinstein's husband, serves on the company's board of directors and controls about 24 percent of the firm's stock, according to Hoover's Inc. research firm.
A Feinstein spokesman Monday declined to comment on the contract.'www.sfgate.com
I guess that's another reason it's difficult to find mention of it now - it's four years old. It would be nice to read that Feinstein had absented herself from votes on this contract, but apparently she didn't. She does seem to have declared the possible conflict of interest openly, though. And it's not as if she had the power (and vindictiveness) of Dick Cheney - able to push approval of contracts through whatever anyone else thought.
Give me a break, at least it is not a liberal rag that some of you refer to. That was not the only source that I referred to anyway. I love the way you liberals try to run down sources when you have no other defense. Kill the messenger,no matter how reliable the message.
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
AnswerPool.com 
