Text 28051, 150 rader
Skriven 2007-03-29 07:26:32 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Democrat Corruption & Conflict of Interest
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And they have the absolute gall to call Bush and the Republicans corrupt!?!


WND ON CAPITOL HILL
Feinstein quits committee under war-profiteer cloud
Report documents military contracts for firms owned by senator's husband
Posted: March 28, 2007
10:05 p.m. Eastern


© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has abruptly walked away from her
responsibilities with the Senate Military Construction Appropriations
Subcommittee after a report linked her votes to the financial well-being of her
husband's companies, which received billions of dollars worth of military
construction contracts she approved.

As reported in Metroactive, an online report from the Silicon Valley,
Feinstein's resignation followed six years of subcommittee work during which
time her alleged conflict of interest stemmed from her husband Richard C.
Blum's ownership of Perini Corp. and URS Corp.

Feinstein, chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee, regularly reviewed
and accepted contracts from her husband's companies for not only construction
work for military bases, but also addressing "quality of life" issues for the
veterans of the United States military services.

"As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction,
even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design," wrote Peter
Byrne in the report. "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."

He suggested perhaps Feinstein resigned "because she could not take the heat
generated by metro's expose of her ethics… Or was her work on the subcommittee
finished because Blum divested ownership of his military construction and
advanced weapons manufacturing firms in late 2005?"

The writer also noted another reason could be that since that subcommittee is
responsible for veterans' "quality of life" issues, perhaps she was trying to
distance herself from the military's failure to provide decent medical care for
wounded servicemembers.

"Feinstein abandoned MILCON as her ethical problems were surfacing in the
media, and as it was becoming clear that her subcommittee left grievously
wounded veterans to rot while her family was profiting from the occupations of
Iraq and Afghanistan. It turns out that Blum also holds large investments in
companies that were selling medical equipment and supplies and real estate
leases – often without the benefit of competitive bidding – to the Department
of Veterans Affairs, even as the system of medical care for veterans collapsed
on his wife's watch," he wrote.

The Metroactive report, based on research partly funded by the Investigative
Fund of the Nation Institute, noted that as of the end of 2006, federal
documents showed three companies in which Blum's financial entities owned a
total of $1 billion in stock got $17.8 million for medical equipment and
supplies (Boston Scientific Corp.), $12 million for medical supplies and
equipment (Kinetic Concepts Inc.), and additional funding through lease
contracts (CB Richard Ellis).

"You would think that, considering all the money Feinstein's family has
pocketed by waging global warfare while ignoring the plight of wounded American
soldiers, she would show a smidgeon of shame and resign from the entire Senate,
not just a subcommittee," Byrne wrote. "Conversely, you'd think she might stick
around MILCON to try and fix the medical-care disaster she helped to engineer
for the vets who were suckered into fighting her and Bush's panoply of unjust
wars."

Byrne earlier had documented the connections between the dollars Feinstein
voted on and the revenue for Blum's companies.

From 1997 through 2005 Blum, with Feinstein's knowledge, was a majority owner
in both URS Corp. and Perini Corp., both of which were regularly among the
companies awarded major military contracts proposed by the Department of
Defense.

According to those reports, from 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from
military construction and environmental cleanup work approved by MILCON, while
Perini collected $759 million for the same.

Feinstein's annual Public Financial Disclosure Reports record sizeable family
income from investments in the Framingham, Mass.-based Perini and the San
Francisco-located URS. But there was no acknowledgment of any conflict of
interest, according to Metroactive, a "Northern California meta-site" that
specializes in arts and entertainment information from area publications:
Metro, Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper; Metro Santa Cruz; and the North Bay
Bohemian.

Byrne also reported Michael R. Klein, an adviser to Feinstein and business
partner with Blum, said that starting in 1997 he routinely told Feinstein about
federal projects coming before her in which Perini had a stake, in order for
her to avoid those votes and as such, a conflict of interest.

However, instead of withholding a vote, she did act on those pieces of
legislation, Byrne reported. Ultimately, "the Congressional Record shows that
as chairperson and ranking member of MILCON, Feinstein was often involved in
supervising the legislative details of military construction projects that
directly affected Blum's defense-contracting firms," Byrne's report said.

"Sen. Feinstein has had a serious conflict of interest, a serious insensitivity
to ethical considerations," Wendell Rawls, of the Center for Public Integrity
in Washington, told Metroactive. "The very least she should have done is to
recuse herself from having conversations, debates, voting or any other kind of
legislative activity that involved either Perini Corp. or URS Corp. or any
other business activity where her husband's financial were involved."

One example was that in 2005, MILCON approved a Pentagon plan to fund "overhead
coverage force protection" for Iraq to reinforce the roofs of U.S. Army
barracks. About three months later, Perini announced an award of a $185 million
contract to provide "overhead coverage force protection to the Army in Iraq."

Byrne noted when Blum divested ownership of URS and Perini in 2005, the
conflict of interest was resolved. "But Feinstein's ethical dilemma arose from
the fact that, for five years, the interests of Perini and URS and CB Richard
Ellis were inextricably entwined with her leadership of MILCON ... ."

The investigation examined thousands of pages of documents, including
transcripts of hearings in Congress, filings with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission and reports and government audits as well as corporate
press releases.

The result? "The paper trails showing Sen. Feinstein's conflict of interest is
irrefutable," according to Danielle Brian, of the Project on Government
Oversight.

"Because of the amount of money involved," said Melanie Sloan, of the Citizens
for Responsible Ethics in Washington, "Feinstein's conflict of interest is an
order of magnitude greater than [other] conflicts [involving U.S. Rep. John T.
Doolittle, former Speaker Dennis Hastert and others]."

In 2005, Roll Call calculated Feinstein's wealth at $40 million, up $10 million
from just a year earlier. Reports show her family earned between $500,000 and
$5 million from capital gains on URS and Perini stock. From CB Richard Ellis,
her husband earned from $1.3 million to $4 million.

Public records show Blum's company paid $4 a share for controlling interest in
Perini, and later sold about three million shares for $23.75 each.

The report also showed URS' military construction work in 2000 was only $24
million, but the next year, when Feinstein took over as MILCON chair, military
construction earned URS $185 million. Additionally, its military construction
architectural and engineering revenue rose from $108,000 in 2000 to $142
million in 2001, a thousand-fold increase.

In late 2005, Blum sold 5.5 million URS shares, worth $220 million, the report
said.

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