Feinstein, Senate Defense Panel, War Profiteers.

This explains what hold Bush has on Feinstein... And hadn't Feinstein been probed by the ethics committee?


Feinstein Leaves Senate Defense Panel Amid Controversy

By Fred Lucas

CNSNews.com Staff Writer

April 02, 2007


(CNSNews.com) - Government watchdog groups want more answers as to why Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) stepped down from a military appropriations subcommittee at a time questions were being asked billions of dollars in federal defense contracts going to her husband's companies.Feinstein resigned her post as chairwoman of the Senate Subcommittee on Military Construction Appropriations, it was reported last week.The decision came less than two months after Metro Newspapers, a group of alternative weekly papers in northern California, detailed the number of defense contracts awarded to Perini Corp. and URS Corp., both of which her husband, Richard C. Blum, has ownership, according to the newspapers. The investigation was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute, a non-profit organization affiliated with the liberal magazine The Nation."This was a critique from the left," Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest group, told Cybercast News Service.



"These were left-leaning papers. The fact that she stepped down from the committee lends credibility to the charges."Fitton said this is something Judicial Watch wanted to further investigate, possibly by seeking public documents on the matter and by asking the Senate Ethics Committee to look into the matter for a possible conflict of interest on Feinstein's part."On the face of it, it seems she at least had influence on how contracts were awarded," Fitton said. "There should be an investigation."


http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200704/POL20070402a.html



And this:



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. 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.


Each year, MILCON's members decide which military construction projects will be funded from a roster proposed by the Department of Defense. Contracts to build these specific projects are subsequently awarded to such major defense contractors as Halliburton, Fluor, Parsons, Louis Berger, URS Corporation and Perini Corporation. From 1997 through the end of 2005, with Feinstein's knowledge, Blum was a majority owner of both URS Corp. and Perini Corp.


While setting MILCON agendas for many years, Feinstein, 73, supervised her own staff of military construction experts as they carefully examined the details of each proposal. She lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were or subsequently became URS or Perini contracts. From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such MILCON projects.


In her annual Public Financial Disclosure Reports, Feinstein records a sizeable family income from large investments in Perini, which is based in Framingham, Mass., and in URS, headquartered in San Francisco. But she has not publicly acknowledged the conflict of interest between her job as a congressional appropriator and her husband's longtime control of Perini and URS—and that omission has called her ethical standards into question, say the experts.

http://www.bohemian.com/metro/01.24.07/dianne-feinstein-0704.html