The Feinstein Files : Where did Feinstein make her fortune?

DF's Ethically Challenged Business Ventures


Dianne Feinstein has profited for 26 years from ethically challenged deals that have netted her and her crony husband tens of millions of dollars, enriching themselves at the expense of the US taxpayers.

According to investopedia, she and her husband are worth somewhere around $94 million dollars. Her salary is under $200,000 a year.

Who Are America's Seven Richest Senators? | Investopedia

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D)
California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s estimated $94 million net worth makes her the second-wealthiest serving senator. Blum Capital, a private equity firm founded in 1975 by her husband. Richard Blum, is the source for most of that wealth. Feinstein’s financial disclosure statement for 2014 revealed that she had anywhere from $5 million to $25 million invested in a blind trust. She also had between $3.1 million to $7.3 million in various money market accounts.
Read more: [link to www.investopedia.com (secure)]

There’s more to this story than investment, however,

With special thanks to the folks at Roots Action for links to sources as well as this article:

Unacceptable! Senator Profits from War and Post Office

Shortly after San Francisco's then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein married private equity financier Richard C. Blum in 1980, those who knew them called theirs "a marriage of the public and private sectors."

Although Feinstein lost a gubernatorial bid to Republican Pete Wilson, she soon took his seat in the U.S. Senate. Working across the aisle, her power rapidly grew along with her husband's diversified investments and their mutual wealth.1
[link to act.rootsaction.org]

------------------------------------

Check is in the mail: Sen. Feinstein's husband to cash in selling old post offices
Washington Guardian -

The real estate giant chaired by Richard Blum, the husband of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, is cashing in on a new federal crisis.

Just a few years after the firm now known as CBRE Group collected more than $108 million from a contract to help the FDIC sell foreclosed properties, the company owned in part by Blum is selling off old post offices under an exclusive contract with the financially struggling U.S. Postal Service, records show.

Officials for the Postal Service, Feinstein’s office and Blum’s company say the contract signed in 2011 with CBRE involved no political influence and was awarded to CBRE after a competitive process that involved six other firms.
[link to www.washingtontimes.com (secure)]

-----------------------------------

GOVERNMENT SAYS COMPANY PART-OWNED BY FEINSTEIN’S HUSBAND ABUSES POST OFFICE CONTRACT
David Dayen
May 5 2015, 12:32 p.m.
(This post is from our new blog: Unofficial Sources.)

CBRE, a giant real estate company partially owned by Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, is costing the U.S. Postal Service millions of dollars a year in lease overpayments, and its exclusive contract should be immediately canceled, the service’s inspector general has found.

Eyebrows rose when the USPS made the contract with CBRE in June 2011 for all real estate transactions. Blum chaired CBRE at the time; he stepped down last year, but remains a director and a major shareholder. Feinstein, D-Calif., has always denied involvement in the deal, which proved lucrative as the cash-strapped Postal Service looked to its excess real estate to finance operations.

The contract enables CBRE to market and sell properties, and conduct negotiations for leases of postal buildings. Prior to the contract, USPS negotiated leases directly with landlords. Now, CBRE often represents both the Postal Service and the landlord in negotiations, known as “dual agency transactions.”

[link to theintercept.com (secure)]

*****************************----

War brings business to Feinstein spouse / Blum's firms win multimillion-dollar defense contracts in
SF Gate

When it comes to scoring mega-military-related contracts, Sen. Dianne Feinstein's multimillionaire husband, Richard Blum, is right in the thick of things.

First up: a contract announced last week between the Army and URS Corp., the San Francisco planning and engineering company that specializes in defense work -- and that happens to be partly owned by Blum's investment firm.

The contract -- which could grow to $600 million -- is to help with troop mobilization, weapons systems training and anti-terrorism methods.

That's on top of a $3.1 billion Army contract that URS snared back in February for weapons systems and homeland defense.
...
But it's Blum's ties to URS -- in which he controls about a quarter of the stock -- that are certain to raise the most questions.

In July, URS acquired defense contractor EG&G (the technical services branch that won the $600 million contract) from the Carlyle Group investment firm. That's the outfit that boasts ex-President George H.W. Bush, former Secretary of State James Baker and ex-British Prime Minister John Major as advisers.
[link to www.sfgate.com (secure)]

---------------------------------

Senator Feinstein's Iraq Conflict
As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her husband's firms
SF Gate

IN THE November 2006 election, the voters demanded congressional ethics reform. And so, the newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own ethical conflict of interest, say congressional ethics experts.

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.
[link to www.metroactive.com]

********************

EXCLUSIVE: Senator's husband's firm cashes in on crisis
The Washington Times

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.

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.
[link to www.washingtontimes.com (secure)]

***********************************


Conflict of Interest for Vice Chair of the UC Regents, Richard C. Blum?
Sants Cruz Indymedia

Vice Chair of the UC Regents, Richard C. Blum, [husband of Diane Feinstein] also happens to be Vice Chair of the URS Corporation. URS Corporation describes itself as “… one of the largest engineering design services firms worldwide and a major U.S. federal government contractor. “ URS is indeed a major government contractor.

URS had $3.38 billion in revenues in 2004. It is the 36th largest military-industrial corporation in the United States with $803 million in contracts with the Department of Defense1. URS Corporation also does work for the Department of Energy. In July of 2000 URS was awarded a contract for “design and construction services at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.�?2 This five-year contract (with a five “option�? year extension) will enrich URS by $25 million per year. Given Mr. Blum’s position on the UC Board of Regents, the public body that manages the Laboratory, and his position as Vice Chair of the URS Corporation, a business that stands to profit from its work at the Laboratory, is this not a conflict of interests?
[link to santacruz.indymedia.org]