We wrote in Diane Feinstein’s Culture of Corruption that she had suddenly resigned as chair of a powerful military appropriations subcommittee in early April. The Hill is reporting the Cardinals, of which Feinstein was one, are the folks who chair the various Appropriations Committee subcommittees and literally control the billions of dollars that pass through their hands.

Until last year Feinstein was for six years the top Democrat on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (or “Milcon”) sub-committee, where she may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband.

If the inferences finally coming out about what she did while on Milcon prove true, she may be on the way to morphing from a respected senior Democrat into another poster child for congressional corruption.

During that period 2001-2005 the public record suggests Feinstein knowingly took part in decisions that eventually put millions of dollars into her husband’s pocket — the classic conflict of interest that exploited her position and power to channel money to her husband’s companies.

In other words, it appears Sen. Feinstein was up to her ears in the same sort of shenanigans that landed California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R) in the slammer. Indeed, it may be that the primary difference between the two is basically that Cunningham was a minor leaguer and a lot dumber than his state’s senior senator.

Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, or CREW, usually focuses on the ethical lapses of Republicans and conservatives says this about Democrat Feinstein:

”there are a number of members of Congress with conflicts of interest … because of the amount of money involved, Feinstein’s conflict of interest is an order of magnitude greater than those conflicts.”

Further troubling is the director of the Project on Government Oversight who examined the evidence of wrongdoing assembled by California writer Peter Byrne told him that

“the paper trail showing Senator Feinstein’s conflict of interest is irrefutable.”

Feinstein’s colleagues on the subcommittee had no reason even to suspect that she knew what companies might benefit from her decisions because that information is routinely withheld to avoid favoritism.

What they didn’t know was that her chief legal adviser, who also happened to be a business partner of her husband’s and the vice chairman of one of the companies involved, was secretly forwarding her lists of projects and appropriation requests that were coming before the committee and in which she and her husband had an interest — information that has only come to light recently as a result of the efforts of several California investigative reporters.

Public records indicate that Feinstein went right ahead and fought for these same projects.

Two companies, URS of San Francisco and the Perini Corporation of Framingham, Mass., were controlled by Feinstein’s husband, Richard C. Blum, and were awarded a combined total of over $1.5 billion in government business thanks in large measure to her [Sen. Feinstein's] subcommittee.

Feinstein left the subcommittee in late 2005 at about the same time her husband sold his stake in both companies. Their combined net worth increased that year with the sale of the two companies by some 25 percent, to more than $40 million.

Demonstrating how the mainstream media deals with Democrats vs. Republicans, The Hill reports:

No major publication has picked up on the story, the Senate Ethics Committee has reportedly let her slip by, and she is now chairing the Senate Rules Committee, which puts her in charge of making sure her colleagues act ethically and avoid the sorts of conflicts of interest with which she is personally and so obviously familiar.

So Diane Feinstein is now the fox guarding the proverbial chicken coop. We do wonder when the Liberals will clean up the corruption house they like to refer as “culture of corruption”, only referring to Republicans. It certainly goes both ways and Senator Feinstein has been caught with her hand in more than the cookie jar.

Source: The Hill

It’s the Democrats turn to clean up the “culture of corruption” now that they have claimed victory in the House and Senate. Of course campaign rhetoric and real solutions often collide when the dust settles.
 
Democrats never supplied the public with an agenda, they simply screamed foul at every turn claiming the Republicans were corrupt, which in many cases was true. But Democrats have dirt under their carpets and ghosts in their closets but keeping promises and acting on these issues creates a problem when the politician is called upon to deliver.
 
“This is an area where there is an opportunity to make the rhetoric of self-reform of Congress real by having the guts to set up an independent office,” Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut).
 
Many on both sides of the aisle don’t agree with Mr. Lieberman, they prefer to “police themselves.” Resistance to tough investigative measures is falling under the guise of “unnecessary and expensive.” Right!
 
Some ideas for reform and new ethics rules, reported in the Wall Street Journal, include:
 

…..bans on gifts and meals from lobbyists and lobbying organizations, and more frequent reports by lobbyists disclosing for whom and what they are working. In disclosure reports, which lobbyists currently are required to file with Congress at least once a year, they also spell out how much they have been paid for their efforts.
 
Former members who become registered lobbyists would be prohibited from seeking help on legislation from their congressional colleagues for two years and denied access to the House and Senate floors. Today, lawmakers-turned-lobbyists can mingle with their former colleagues inside the chambers during debates and votes.

The proposed packages in both the House and Senate would curtail, if not ban, travel paid for by lobbyists and organizations that lobby. House leaders say they would prohibit lawmakers from using corporate planes for official travel. Both chambers are expected to require members to identify hometown projects they insert into spending bills.

Changes would be welcome but enforcement must be rigid? How specific would rules be? How would enforcement take place? Currently neither the House or Senate proposals have an air of independency to monitor rules regarding their own actions, investigation or disciplinary.
 
Mr. Lieberman co-sponsored a measure earlier this year with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), establishing an independent Office of Public Integrity that would vet Senate ethics complaints and conduct investigations of those it deemed serious. Under the proposal, the ethics committee would oversee the integrity office and could end a probe with a majority vote. The committee also would decide whether to impose penalties on a member.

The Lieberman-Collins bill was defeated in a bipartisan landslide, 70-30. Among those opposing the office was incoming Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. This is no surprise coming from the ethically challenged Reid.
 
Business as usual and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has promised an ethics overhaul. Earlier this year Pelosi proposed enhancing the powers of Congress’s inspector general’s office to handle disclosure reports by lobbyists. The proposal didn’t extend that office’s jurisdiction to ethics allegations against members of Congress.
 
To be effective it will take massive action and reform to exclude privately funded travel for lawmakers and preventing lobbying groups and politicians to use loopholes at every turn to rationalize gifts and business interests including free “vacations” as methods to gain clout inside Congress. Expenditures should be made public and new rules should be made clear and specific, otherwise it will be business as usual.
 
We’re watching legislation on ethics closely and if change doesn’t take place it will be a future campaign issue.