From California Conservative comes a story of some questionable activity by Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Sen. Feinstein sits on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which oversees ethics reform–and had been the chairperson of the Military Appropriations sub-committee.

Her husband owns a business that deals with military contracts.

Here’s the money quote:

This includes two large defense contractors, Perini and URS. Sen. Feinstein made a great deal of money through investment in these companies, and despite the obvious conflict of interest, she continued voting on these bills. But the story doesn’t end there. Senator Feinstein not only voted on these bills, she was supplied insider information about specific funds and projects that Perini had financial interests in by her Attorney, Michael Klein. MetroActive reports:

Klein stated that, beginning in 1997, he routinely informed Feinstein about specific federal projects coming before her in which Perini had a stake. The insider information, Klein said, was intended to help the senator avoid conflicts of interest…

“We basically identified any bid that Perini was going for and checked to see whether it was the subject of already appropriated funds or funds yet to be appropriated, and if it was anything that the senator could not act on, her office was alerted and she did not act on it.”

This is an extraordinary thing for Klein and the senator to do, since the detailed project proposals that the Pentagon sent to Feinstein’s subcommittee for review do not usually name the firms already contracted to perform specific projects… In theory, Feinstein would not know the identity of any of the companies that stood to contractually benefit from her approval of specific items in the military construction budget–until Klein told her.

However, the public record shows that contrary to Klein’s belief, Feinstein did act on legislation that affected Perini and URS.

She stepped down from the Military Appropriations Sub-Committee after news broke on this arrangement.

Um, are we going to have an ethics investigation into her actions? Didn’t think so.

Written by ~J~

2 Responses to “Is Feinstein Ethically Challenged?”

1. lea says:

   April 9, 2007 at 2:04 am

   what are the republicans doing about feinstein? why aren’t they going after her about this? there is nothing on the news either. they make lott resign over something so stupid but this, whereby, it proves she hasn’t any morals to speak of, they let it slip away.
2. ~J~ says:

   April 9, 2007 at 2:14 am

   Lea,

   The plain and simple fact is she is in the majority now and congress is not likely to investigate her. Then again, someone may start an investigation to see if there is truly a conflict of interest here. No one is supposed to be above the law.