California Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein was wealthy when she came to the senate. And thanks to the way she’s blatantly directed federal funds to her husband’s many businesses, she’s become far wealthier.
Most of the media buries this story as deeply as they buried her past corruption. But here’s how the Washington Times and Fox News describe her latest personal money grab:
On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband’s real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms, the Washington Times reported on Tuesday.
Mrs. Feinstein’s intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn’t a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments – not direct federal dollars.
Documents reviewed by The Washington Times show Mrs. Feinstein first offered Oct. 30 to help the FDIC secure money for its effort to stem the rise of home foreclosures. Her letter was sent just days before the agency determined that CB Richard Ellis Group (CBRE) – the commercial real estate firm that her husband Richard Blum heads as board chairman – had won the competitive bidding for a contract to sell foreclosed properties that FDIC had inherited from failed banks.
About the same time of the contract award, Mr. Blum’s private investment firm reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it and related affiliates had purchased more than 10 million new shares in CBRE. The shares were purchased for the going price of $3.77; CBRE’s stock closed Monday at $5.14.
Feinstein had to resign as chairman of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee back in 2007, because she was caught steering contracts to her husband’s companies. Seems to be a pattern.
Here’s how it was described by the Silicon Valley Metro, one of the few California newspapers to cover the story:
SEN. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum’s ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.
As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design. She regularly took junkets to military bases around the world to inspect construction projects, some of which were contracted to her husband’s companies, Perini Corp. and URS Corp.
Perhaps she resigned from MILCON because she could not take the heat generated by Metro’s expose of her ethics (which was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute). Or was her work on the subcommittee finished because Blum divested ownership of his military construction and advanced weapons manufacturing firms in late 2005?
If this had been a Republican, headlines would have blared across the front page of every newspaper in the land. It would have been the lead story on every network newscast every night until the Republican had been hounded from office. And Keith Olbermann would have been apoplectic.
Cancel that last one. Olbermann’s already apoplectic. Just not about Feinstein.
Source: Source: Washington Times and FoxNews.com and Silicon Valley Metro via Alternet.org
This post was last modified on January 26, 2021
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